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III 

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Columfjfa  Winl\ittsHtp 

STUDIES  IN  CLASSICAL  PHILOLOGY 


THE  DREAM 

IN 

HOMER  AND  GREEK  TRAGEDY 


COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 
SALES  AGENTS 


NEW  YORK 

LEMCKE  &  BUECHNER 
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LONDON 

HUMPHREY  MILFORD 
Amen  Corner,  E.  C. 

shanghai 

EDWARD  EVANS  &  SONS,  Ltd. 

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THE  DREAM 

IN 

HOMER  AND  GREEK  TRAGEDY 


BY 

WILLIAM  STUART  MESSER 

INSTRUCTOR   IN   CLASSICAL  PHILOLOGY,   BARNARD   COLLEGE 
COLUMBIA   UNIVERSITY 


Submitted  in  Partial  Fulfilment  of  the  Requirements 

FOR  THE  Degree  of  Doctor  of  Philosophy,  in  the 

Faculty  of  Philosophy,  Columbia  University 


> , '  J ' )  J . .  > »    '  >  >  >  •>  >  >  >• »  • 


COLUMBIA  UKIVERSITY  PRESS 
1918 

All  rights  reserved 


Mi- 


Copyright,  1918 
By  Columbia  University  Press 


Printed  from  type,  April,  1918 


NOTE 

This  monograph  has  been  approved  by  the  Department  of 
Classical  Philology  of  Columbia  University  as  a  contribution  to 
knowledge  worthy  of  publication, 

Clarence  H.  Young, 
Chairman. 


^  Q  *>  .->  r  7 


/t/ 


PREFACE 

This  treatise  is  part  of  a  broader  investigation  of  the  dream 
in  all  its  aspects,  literary  and  non-literary,  to  which  I  have 
devoted  the  spare  hours  of  the  last  seven  years.  My  primary 
interest  in  this  investigation  has  been  in  the  dream  and  its  ways 
in  Latin  literature.  A  study  published  in  Mnemosyne,  45,  78- 
92,  in  which  I  suggested  a  possible  source  for  one  feature  of  a 
certain  type  of  Roman  dream,  may  be  taken  as  defining  to  some 
extent  my  interest  in  the  dream  from  the  literary  standpoint 
as  well  as  presenting  my  conclusions  with  respect  to  the 
problems  involved  in  the  particular  dream  considered  in  that 
study.  But  to  treat  adequately  the  dream  in  Latin  literature 
presupposes  a  knowledge  of  its  ancestor  and  prototype  in  Greek 
literature,  and  so  the  present  introductory  monograph  embodies 
one  phase  of  my  researches  in  the  earlier  field.  It  discusses 
some  aspects  of  the  dream  in  a  portion  of  that  field — Homer, 
Hesiod  and  Greek  Tragedy.  It  concerns  itself  with  the  dream  as 
an  originating  cause  or  directing  principle  of  the  action  in  poem 
or  play,  a  moving  force  in  the  evolution  of  narrative  or  plot  and 
in  the  introduction  of  smaller  incidents  and  episodes.  An 
American  scholar^  has  recently  complained  of  the  lack  of  a 
proper  study  of  the  matter  of  motivation  in  Greek  and  Latin 
tragedy  and  comedy.  This  essay  touches  upon  a  limited  portion 
of  that  larger  investigation.  From  another  point  of  view  it 
deals,  within  the  limits  of  each  dream  picture,  with  the  amplifica- 
tion of  the  dream,  its  increasing  complexity,  its  growth  and 
refinement,  or  its  decay,  as  an  artistic  literary  device.  I  hope 
at  no  far  distant  date  to  publish  further  studies  in  other  aspects 
of  the  dream. 

iH.  W.  Prescott,  Classical  Philology,  11,  136;  141. 


VIII  Preface 

I  believe  that  few  of  the  discussions  of  the  dream,  generally 
accessible,  have  escaped  my  examination.  Furthermore,  I  have 
made  a  collection  of  the  passages  in  Greek  and  Latin  literature  in 
which  dreams  are  related  in  full  or  in  which  reference  is  made  to 
dreams,  scarcely  short  of  entire  completeness,  down  through 
the  first  quarter  of  the  second  century,  so  that  on  any  point 
the  guiding  principle  of  a  knowledge  of  how  the  dream  has  been 
treated  elsewhere  has  always  been  available.  On  the  basis  of 
this  reading  I  have,  in  the  footnotes,  defended  positions  taken 
in  the  text  and  discussed  allied  aspects  of  the  dream,  contenting 
myself,  however,  with  the  citation  of  authorities  and  parallel 
passages  which  may  be  looked  upon  as  illustrative  rather  than 
as  exhaustive. 

The  study  of  the  art  and  the  structure  of  poetry  concerns 
itself  with  a  great  nimiber  of  smaller  problems  of  technique,  of 
which  that  involved  in  the  use  of  the  dream  is  one.  The  solu- 
tion of  the  problems  of  the  technique  of  the  dream,  then,  will  to 
some  extent  throw  light  upon  that  larger  field. 

William  Stuart  Messer. 

Barnard  College,  Coltimbia  University. 
June  4,  1917. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Homer       1-52 

The  Iliad 1 

The  Odyssey 24 

Summary  for  the  Homeric  Poems 47 

Hesiod 53 

Tragedy 56-102 

Aeschylus 60 

The  Persae 60 

The  Prometheus  Vinctus 66 

The  Choephori 70 

The  Eumenides 74 

Minor  References 77 

Sophocles 79 

The  Electra 79 

Euripides 85 

The  Hecuba 85 

The  Iphigenia  Taurica 91 

The  Rhesus 97 

Minor  References 100 

List  of  Abbreviations:  Bibliography 103 


THE  DREAM  IN  HOMER  AND 
GREEK  TRAGEDY 

HOMER 

THE    ILIADi 

The  early  conception  of  the  dream  was,  as  is  shown  by  the 
language,  extremely  simple.  Homeric  vocabulary  gives  no  hint 
of  an  elaborate  classification,  under  the  general  term  'dream',  of 
many  types  of  experiences,  all  closely  related  to  the  experiences 
of  the  dream  and  yet  differing  from  one  another,  such  as  gradually 
took  shape  and,  at  a  later  period,  was  widely  known.^/^This 
classification  appears  in  Artemidorus,  Macrobius,  loannes 
Saresberiensis,  who  all  drew  from  a  common  source,  and  in 

^For  greater  clearness  in  reference  I  have  relegated  to  a  List  of  Abbrevia- 
tions, arranged  alphabetically  (pages  103-105),  the  titles  of  works  cited  two 
or  more  times.  In  all  other  cases  the  necessary  identification  will  be  found 
in  the  footnotes. 

/  ^The  ancient  classical  writers  on  dreams  and  dream  interpretation  were  \ 
legion.     The  chief  sources  for  a  list  of  them  are  Cicero,  De  Divinatione;    I 
Artemidorus,  Onirocritica;     TertuUian,  De  Anima  (the   earliest  treatise    \ 
on  Christian  psychology).     Biichsenschutz,  47-52,  gives  a  list  of  those  who 
followed  the  classical  period,  with  a  short  summary  of  the  contributions        ' 
of  each:    Antiphon,  an  Athenian  of  the  time  of  Alexander;    Straton,  a        / 
pupil  of  Theophrastus;   Demetrius  of  Phalerum;  Aristandrus  and  Apollo-     / 
dorus  of  Telmessus;   Philochorus,  the  historian;   Chrysippus;   Antipatrus     j 
of  Tarsus;    Dionysius  of  Rhodes;    Cratippus,  the  Peripatetic;   Alexander     I 
of  Myndus;    Hermippus  of  Berytus;    ApoUonius  of  Attaleia;    Artemon    / 
of  Miletus;  Geminus  of  Tyre;  Nicostratus  of  Ephesus;    Phoebus  of  Anti-  / 
och;  Serapion  of  Ascalon./From  these  and  all  other  sources,  Artemidorus 
felt  himself  called  upon  by  Apollo,  so  he  declares,  2,  70,  to  collect  material 
for  the  compilation  of  a  comprehensive  treatise,  a  definitive  account  of  the 
dream  and  its  interpretation.     The  subject-matter  and  the  theoretical, 
beliefs  of  his  predecessors  are  very  largely  preserved  in  his  five  books. 

1 


2  The  Dream  in  Homer  and  Greek  Tragedy 

Nicephorus  Gregoras  and  Pseudo-Augustinus,^  who  find  their 
archetype  in  the  writings  of  Macrobius.^  Macrobius'  discus- 
sion is  the  most  famous.  He  gives  the  Hst  as  follows  {S omnium 
Scipionis,  1,  3,  2) :  aut  enim  est  ovstpoq  secundiim  Graecos  quod 
Latini  somnium  vocant,  aut  est  opa^.a  quod  visio  recte  appellatur, 
aut  est  xp"ntJt.aTiJtAo<;  qu-od  oraculum  nuncupatur,  aut  est  ivuxvtov 
quod  insomnium  dicitur,  aut  est  (JxzvTaJtxa  quod  Cicero,  quotiens 
opus  hoc  nomine  fuit,  visum  vocavit.  Plainly,  all  these  concep- 
tions, once  fairly  distinct,  had  by  the  time  of  Macrobius  been 
merged  in  the  general  idea  of  dream.  But  in  Homer,  three  oi 
these  words,  opa[xa,  x9W^'^^'^V'^^i  (jx^vTaa^ia,  nowhere  occur. 
^v6'rcvtov  is  found  in  Iliad,  2,  56  (repeated  in  Odyssey,  14,  495,  a 
line  interpolated  from  the  IZiOG^) :  xXuts,  ^'Ckrn'  Geloq  ^oi  ivuiuviov 
•^XOsv  "Ovetpoq,  but  as  an  adverb^  rather  than  as  a  substantive. 
The  fifth  word,  Svscpoc;  (and  its  variant,  6vap  ),  is  the  regular 
Homeric  term  for  the  general  conception  of  dream. 

Iliad,  2,  1  ff. 

The  first  dream  of  importance  in  the  earlier  work  comes  in 
2,  1  ff.  Zeus,  anxious  to  do  honor  to  Achilles  for  the  wrong 
which  the  latter  has  suffered  at  the  hands  of  the  ruler  of  the 
Greeks,  ponders  how  he  may  beguile  Agamemnon  and  kill  many 
of  the  Achaeans;  so  he  plans  the  sending  of  a  dream.  He 
addresses  at  once  a  dream,  stationed  always  near  at  hand,  it 
would  seem  from  the  story,  to  receive  his  commands,  and  bids  it 
deliver  his  behests  to  Agamemnon.  The  dream  flies  swiftly 
to  the  Greek  fleet  and,  likening  itself  to  Nestor,  communicates 
the  heaven-sent  injunction  to  Agamemnon,  bidding  him  call 

'Artemidoms,  Onirocritica,  1,  2;  Macrobius,  Somn.  Scip,  1,  3,  2  (ed. 
Eyssenhardt,  Leipzig,  1893);  Joannes  Saresberiensis,  Polycraticus,  2,  15 
(Migne,  P.  L.  199,  429);  Nicephorus  Gregoras,  Scholia  in  Synesium  De 
Insomniis  (Migne,  P.  G.  149,  608A);  Pseudo-Augustinus,  De  Spiritu  et 
Anima,  25  (Migne,  P.  L.  40,  798). 

*See,  for  the  stemma  showing  their  relation  to  a  common  source  and  to 
one  another,  Deubner,  4. 
'Cf.  the  like  use,  iv^vviov  iffTKifitSa^  Aristophanes,  Vesp,  1218. 


The  Iliad  3 

to  battle  the  Greeks  to  take  the  Trojan  city,  for  the  gods  of 
Olympus  are  no  longer  divided  in  counsel,  but  will  deliver  Troy 
into  the  hands  of  the  Greeks.  /  The  king,  at  dawn,  assembles  the 
leaders  and  delivers  to  them  the  exact  message  of  the  dream. 
On  the  strength  of  this  message  he  announces  that  he  will,  after 
testing  the  spirit  of  his  warriors,  attack  and  take  the  city.  His 
oldest  counselor,  Nestor,  also  takes  for  granted  that  the  orders 
of  the  dream  must  be  fulfilled.^ 

/  In  this  familiar  account,  note  the  entire  externality,  the 
complete  objectivity,  of  the  dream.^  The  dream  is  an  entity.^ 
There  is  no  statement  that  Agamemnon  dreamed  that  Nestor 
appeared,  or  that  he  beheld  him  in  sleep.  And  Zeus,  too, 
accosts  the  dream  as  he  might  accost  a  person.  So  strongly  is 
this  artistic  personification  felt  thaf'Ovetpoq  becomes  almost  a 
proper  name./  The  editors,  indeed, —  Monro  and  Allen,  Christ, 

'2,  79-83.  According  to  these  lines  the  medium  through  which  a  dream 
is  reported  is  of  no  small  consequence.  The  scholiast  of  Venetus  A  (Din- 
dorf,  Homeri  Bias,  Scholia,  1,  76)  declares  the  whole  passage,  76-83  > 
spurious.  He  was  without  doubt  following  Aristarchus.  This  is  of 
interest.  Aristarchus  (220-145  B.  C.)  was  a  contemporary  of  Polybius  (205- 
123  B.C.)  The  latter,  writing  a  scientific,  rationalistic,  pragmatic  history, 
declares  that  dreams  are  of  natural  origin  and  without  divine  genesis 
or  prophetic  force  (cf.,  e.g.,  10,  4-5;  18,  15,  13).  The  scepticism  of  the 
period  may  have  influenced  the  mind  of  the  scientific  textual  critic  and 
have  suggested  his  emendation. 

^The  following  passages  stress  the  objectivity  of  the  dream  in  Homer: 
Iliad,  2,  6;  2,  8;  2,  16-17;  2,  35;  2,  56;  2,  59;  2,  71;  23,  65;  23,  68; 
23,97-101;  23,106;  Od.  4,  799;  4,802;  4,838;  4,841;  6,20;  6,41; 
20,  87.  Cf.  also  Hey,  10.  The  assumption  of  an  'exoteric'  (the  term  is 
Hey's)  dream  for  the  earlier  portions  of  'Homer',  I  am,  on  the  whole, 
incHned  to  accept.  The  lack  of  agreement,  however,  on  the  part  of  the  editors 
as  to  just  what  constitutes  the  original  poems  renders  assurance  about 
any  particular  passage  well-nigh  impossible.  See  also  footnotes  18  and 
67. 

'  ^Ghosts  and  the  persons  of  dreams  behave  alike/  cf.  Iliad,  2,  20  and 
23,  68;  the  ghost  of  Odysseus'  mother  in  Hades  i/ likened  'to  a  shadow 
or  a  dream',  Od.  10,  207,  for  Sleep  and  Death  are  twin  brothers  (see  infra, 
40).  Iliad,  16,  672.     Cf.  Seymour,  524-525. 


4  The  Dream  in  Homer  and  Greek  Tragedy 

Cauer,  Pierron^  and  others — ^write  it  with  a  capital  initial.  Of 
course  this  does  not  mean  that  Homer  believed  in  a  God  of 
Dreams. ^°  All  the  later  literary  references  militate  against 
such  an  interpretation.  Nowhere,  in  the  field  covered  by  my 
investigations,  is  a  dream  demanded  from  a  dream  divinity  or 
from  a  king  of  dreams.^^  Even  in  so  late  a  passage  as  Ovid, 
Metamorphoses,  11,  585  ff.,^^  it  is  from  Somnus  that  Iris  requests  a 
dream,  not  from  a  dream  divinity.  •»  The  Homeric  poet  here 
distinctly  says  that  the  dream  comes  from  Zeus,^^  who  has  the 
dream  daimon  at  hand  to  do  his  bidding.'  The  nearest  approach 
to  a  dream  divinity  in  the  Homeric  poems  is  Hermes.  He 
shows  traces  of  a  connection  with  sleep  and  the  dream  in  the 
Odyssey}^  But  he  is  not  portrayed  as  a  god  of  dreams  and 
6vsipoxo(jLx6<;  as  an  epithet  of  Hermes  is  not  ante-Alexandrian. 
Not  before  the  time  of  the  late  Magic  Papyri  is  "Ovstpoc;  looked 

^See  their  texts:  D.  B.  Monro  and  T.  W.  Allen,  Homeri  Opera  (Oxford, 
1908);  A.  Pierron,  Vlliade  d'Homere  (Paris,  1883).  For  Christ  and 
Cauer  see  List  of  Abbreviations. 

^°Nor  does  the  reference  in  Pausanias,  2, 10,  2,  to  an  &ya\fxa  'Ovelpov 
which  stood  in  the  temple  of  Asklepios  in  Sicyon,  indicate  a  belief  in  an 
actual  divinity,''Oj'ctpos.  The  statue  was  the  sculptor's  plastic  representa- 
tion of  the  poet's  conception,  without  relation  to  cult.  Nagelsbach, 
Homer.  Theol.  182,  says:  "einen  solchen  <i.e.  Traumgott>  kennt  liber- 
haupt  die  griechische  Mythologie  nicht".  Cf.  also  ibid.,  184;  Nagelsbach, 
Nachhom.  Theol.  173;    Dieterich,  410. 

i^My  collection  of  dream  references  goes  down  into  the  second  century 
A.D.     See  Preface,  page  viii. 

^^See  infra,  page  43;  n.  185. 

^miad,  1,  63;    2,  1-7. 

^*See  Od.  7,  1 37-138  and  the  scholiast  there,  iirel  dveipoiroixirbi  Kal  virvod6T7]t, 
and  on  23,  198:  Eustathius,  1574,  40;  Heliodorus,  Aethiopica,  3,  5. 
From  Hermes  dveipoirofiirbs  to  Hermes  x^o^'^os  and  KaraxQ^viOi  the 
step  was  short,  and  then  to  call  upon  him  in  prayer,  as  upon  other  chthonic 
divinities,  became  natural.  Cf.  Dieterich,  P.  M.  802,  5,  8  (see  Hey,  38), 
and  the  chapter  entitled,  Hermes  als  See  lenf iihrer,  Schlaf-  und  Traumgott, 
in  Roscher,  66-71. 


The  Iliad  5 

upon  as  a  sender  of  dreams.^^    We  may  then  deny  a  god  of 
dreams  for  this  early  poem. 

But  the  strongly  external  origin  of  the  dream  is  emphasized 
by  the  vivid  personification  which  the  poet  uses  here,  and  this 
personification  the  adjective  oSXo?^^  helps.  It  is  found  in  only 
five  places  in  the  Iliad:  twice  in  our  passage  (6;  8),  descriptive 
of  "Ovstpoq;  twice  as  an  epithet  of  Ares,  5,  461;  717;  and  once 
as  an  epithet  of  Achilles,  21,  536.  In  the  Iliad,  then,  through 
the  connecting  link  of  this  adjective,  "Ovstpoq  keeps  virile, 
objective  company— the  god  of  war  and  tLe  Greek  hero.  Only 
in  the  second  book  of  the  Iliad  is  "Ovstpoq  found  with  any  limit- 
ing adjectives.  These  are  the  above  mentioned  ouXo(;  (6;  8), 
and  Gstoq^^  (22;  56).  And  so  we  have  "Oveigoq  linked  with 
oSXoq,  used  elsewhere  in  this  poem  of  Ares  and  Achilles  only,  and 
with  Oetoq,  'having  its  origin  from  the  gods',  'pertaining  to  the 
gods',  a  connotation  which,  taken  in  connection  with  the  other 
factors  mentioned,  to  some  degree  augments  the  objectivity  of 
the  dream.^^ 

^^Wessely,  Griechische  Zauherpapyri,  113,  424  ff.  =Kenyon,  Greek  Papyri, 
78,  410  ff.  deioi  * Oveipos  ijfieplvovs  xPV<^f^o^^  f^f-^  vvKrephovs  iiriirifiircjv,  quoted 
by  Hey,  38. 

i^Connected  with  6\o6s,  bWvfii;  see  Boisacq  and  Prellwitz,  s.  v.  Cf. 
also,  L.  Meyer,  Handbuch  der  Griechischen  Etymologie,  2,  214-215 
(Leipzig,  1901). 

"The  meter  will  not  allow  dii'os  in  line  22;  hence  Christ,  Leaf,  and  Pick 
read  oSXoi,  following  Nauck  (Berlin,  1877),  who  adopts  the  variant  reading 
of  A,  Trpo(Te(f>d}veev  odXoi,  on  the  ground  that  the  older  portions  of  Homer 
always  show  dii'os  (though  deios  is  common  with  doiSdi  in  the  Odyssey). 
Note  in  regard  to  this  argument  the  fact  that  the  dream's  voice  is  spoken 
of  as  det-n  6fx(t>'^  (41).  If  one  could  accept  the  meaning  which  Dieterich 
(Archiv  fiir  Rel.-Wiss.,  9  [1906],  148)  finds  in  this  word,  'kraus',  'lockig' 
(he  quotes  the  collections  of  passages  in  Deubner,  12,  dealing  with  the 
ideal  size  and  beauty  of  figures  which  appear  in  dreams),  the  objectivity 
oi''Oveipos  would  only  be  strengthened. 

^^Nowhere  in  the  Odyssey  is  the  personality  of  the  word  so  strongly 
stressed  by  its  adjectives:  cf.  e.g.  6v€ipoi  ^ti-fixo-voi,  19,  560;  ifievrtvQv 
dvdpwp,  562.  The  bearing  of  the  form  of  dream  technique  upon  the  Homeric 
question  is  obvious.     Compare  notes  7  and  67 . 


6  The  Dream  in  Homer  and  Greek  Tragedy 

Zeus  sends  the  dream  as  he  or  his  consort  Hera  might  send 
forth  Iris/®  and  the  dream  acts  in  many  ways  as  do  the  gods.^'' 
It  goes  swiftly  (17)^^  to  the  Achaeans'  ships  and  makes  its  way  to 
the  tent  of  Agamemnon.  It  stands  above  Agamemnon's  head 
(20 ;  59)  ,22  taking  upon  itself  the  likeness  of  Nestor  (20-22 ;  58) , 
*most  exactly  resembling  him  in  appearance  and  size  and  form'.^^ 
The  dream  then  addresses  the  sleeping  chief  as  the  gods  address 
waking  men.     It  declares  itself  a  messenger  from  Zeus,^^  warns 

^"Compare  the  sending  of  divinities  as  messengers,  Iliad^  24, 143 ;  18, 166. 
I  am  not  in  this  paragraph  claiming  fot'Oveipos  a  divinity  and  a  cult 
which  I  have  denied  him  above  (page  4),  but  am  merely  calling  attention 
to  the  similarities  of  action  which  stress  his  personality. 

^''Mark  the  similarities  of  behavior  in  the  following  typical  theophanies: 
Iliad,  3,  121  ff.;  4,  73  ff.;  11,  185  ff.;  15,  157  ff.;  220  ff.;  17,  322  ff.; 
18,  166  ff.;  24,  141  ff.  Hypnos  and  Thanatos  are  also  personified:  in 
Iliad,  16,  671  ff.,  Apollo  gives  Sarpedon's  dead  body  to  the  twin  brothers, 
Sleep  and  Death,  to  carry  to  the  rich  land  of  wide  Lycia.  Even  more 
strongly  is  Hypnos  personified  in  14,  224  ff.,  where  Hera  intrigues  with  him 
against  Zeus.  There,  too,  "Ttt vos  is  KatrlyvrjTos  Qavdroio  (231).  For  further 
discussion  of  these  personifications  see  pages  36  ff. 

X^^In  the  primitive  belief  the  dream  was  no  mere  mental  hallucination, 
but  the  persons  who  seemed  to  have  appeared  in  the  dream  were  thought 
to  have  been  actually  present.  These  persons  often  in  the  short  period 
of  sleep  'came  from  afar',  as  did  Iphthime  to  Penelope,  Od.  4,  787-841 
(infra,  24-28).  This  necessitated  the  complementary  supposition  of 
great  speed;  cf.  Od.  6,  20./ 

^^This  position  of  the  ghost  and  of  the  person  of  the  dream  becomes 
conventional.  The  stock  phrase,  'stands  above  the  head',  'stands  at  the 
head',  is  common  to  practically  all  the  dreams  of  the  two  early  epics; 
cf.  Iliad,  10,  496;  23,  68;  Od.  4,  803;  6,21;  20,  32.  See  also  Euripides, 
Rhesus,  780;  and  elsewhere  passim.  It  persists  through  the  middle  ages 
(cf.  E.  Duemmler,  Poetae  Latini  Aevi  Cawli,  2,  267  [Berlin,  1884]:  adstans 
capiti  eius,  of  the  vision  of  Wettin),  indeed  down  into  modern  literatures 
(cf.  e.g.  Milton,  Par.  Lost,  8,  292:  "when  suddenly  stood  at  my  head  a 
dream").     See  infra,  90;  n.  68. 

23In  Iliad,  16,  715,  Apollo  takes  on  the  likeness  of  Asios,  in  17,  322,  of 
Periphas.     In  Od.  1,  96  ff.,  Athene  appears  to  Telemachus  as  Mentes. 

2*Cf.  Iliad,  1,  63:  'for  the  dream  too  (i.e.  as  well  as  other  revelations; 
I  take  Kal  with  6uap;  see  Ameis-Hentze)  is  of  Zeus'.     This  is  important 


The  Iliad  7 

Agamemnon  not  to  let  forgetfulness  possess  him  on  awaking 
(33-34),  and  departs  in  flight  (71).  In  all  its  acts,  then,  the 
dream  is  objective  and  personal.  It  is  artistically  conceived  and 
portrayed  as  an  external  entity,  with  power  of  moving,  thinking 
and  speaking,  like  to  any  herald  sent  by  the  gods,  a  gentiine 

information.  The  books  on  the  dream  in  Greek  and  Roman  cult  are  too 
prone  to  neglect  the  earlier  elements  entering  into  the  growth  of  incubation 
and  to  emphasize  the  elements  adopted  by  the  priests  of  the  Olympian 
deities  from  the  Egyptian  cults  as  something  entirely  foreign  to  earlier 
religious  conceptions.  The  evidence  of  this  line  for  the  early  importance 
of  the  dream  is  explicit.  Equally  inescapable  is  the  inference  from  the 
phrase  immediately  preceding  (62-63),  in  which  Achilles  links,  as  of  equal 
prophetic  power,  the  ixivn^,  who  does  his  soothsaying  from  divine  omens 
of  many  kinds,  the  lepeis,  the  priest  of  a  definite  divinity,  who  foretells 
the  future  from  the  victims  offered  by  him  to  his  god,  and  the  <}v€tpoT6\o». 
About  the  meaning  of  this  last  word,  there  is  much  dispute.  Nagelsbach, 
Horn.  Theol.  172,  believes  that  there  is  evidence  in  the  two  epics  that 
incubation  was  practiced  in  the  Homeric  period.  Rohde,  1,  37,  is  not 
entirely  convinced,  but  maintains  that  the  6p€ipoTr6\os  is  not  a  priest 
who  lies  down  intentionally  for  mantic  sleep,  but  rather  an  ivtipoKplrtft, 
an  interpreter  of  dreams  which  come  unsought,  a  theory  which  postulates 
the  recognition  by  the  poet  of  the  allegorical  dream  (see  infra,  33).  Hey, 
10-11,  attacking  the  problem  from  another  side  and  denying  for  the  earlier 
parts  of  Homer  the  conception  of  dream  phenomena  as  psychic,  originating 
within  the  mind,  concludes:  "Aus  eben  diesem  Grunde  kann  6veipoTr6\o%,  \ 
Iliad,  1,  63,  nicht  der  Traumdeuter  heissen,  weil  dies  die  Auffassung  der 
Traume  als  seeliches  Innenbild,  den  sog.  allegorischen  Traum,  voraussetzen 
wiirde.  Das  Wort  bedeutet  vielmehr  'Traumseher',  zu  dem  der  6v€ipos 
vorzugsweise  'kommt'  l/ire\".  I  am  on  the  whole  inclined  to  agree  with 
Hey;  but  be  that  as  it  may,  the  important  fact  here  is  that  the  dream 
seer  is  put  on  an  equal  footing,  in  regard  to  the  clearness  of  perception 
with  which  he  may  see  what  is  to  come,  with  the  two  great  prophetic 
priesthoods  of  the  early  Greek  religion.  It  is  no  doubt  true,  therefore, 
that  belief  in  the  prophetic  power  of  the  dream  was  native  to  the  Greek 
stock,  as  it  has  been  found  native  among  all  primitive  peoples  (see  Spencer, 
Tylor,  Robertson  Smith,  Rohde,  passim) ;  that  the  Orient,  especially 
Babylon,  the  home  of  magic  (Hey,  7),  may  have  reacted  upon  Greek 
religion  in  prehistoric  times;  but  that  the  dream  oracles  greatly  antedated 
the  historical  period  (Rohde,  1,  123),  as  the  antiquity  of  the  Amphiaraus 
oracle  at  Thebes  (Pausanias,  1,  34,  5;  Pindar,  N.  9,  24  flf.;  10,  8  f.), 
the  Trophonius  oracle  at  Lebadea  in  Boeotia  (Pausanias,  9, 39, 6),  the  dream 


8  The  Dream  in  Homer  and  Greek  Tragedy 

dream  daimon.^^  No  conception  could  be  further  from  the 
theories  of  Aristotle  and  Freud.^^ 

The  receiver  of  the  dream  is  here  a  man,  a  convention  which 
is  maintained  throughout  the  Iliad}'^  The  conditions  inherent 
in  the  tale  may  have  determined  this,  for  the  personae  of  the 
poem  are  almost  entirely  male.  But  whatever  factors  operated 
here,  there  arose  later  a  different  convention,  first  hinted  at 
in  the  Odyssey,  which  became  practically  fixed  for  tragedy — 
that  the  dream  should  come  to  a  woman}^  The  deity  that 
sends  the  dream  is  Zeus,  the  chief  Greek  god  of  the  Homeric  age. 

The  dream  in  Iliad  2  appears  at  a  great  crisis  of  the  story, 
after  the  provocation  of  the  (jl-^vk;  of  Achilles  by  Agamemnon. 
Through  the  dream  the  first  step  toward  the  atonement  for  the 
wrong  done  to  Achilles  is  taken.  Agamemnon  is  influenced  to 
call  a  council  of  the  elders  and  his  own  folly  at  this  council  leads 
him  to  propose  a  plan  for  testing  the  Greeks  which  almost 
results  in  the  undoing  of  the  expedition.  Only  the  intervention 
of  Hera  and  Athene  (155  ff.)  averts  an  abortive  return.  The 
evil  done  by  the  king's  thoughtless  test  is,  indeed,  partially 
repaired;  but  the  action  started  by  the  dream  leads  to  the  many 

oracle  of  Ge  at  Delphi,  which  was  displaced  by  the  later  ApoUine  mantic 
(Euripides,  Iph.  Taur.  1262;  Pausanias,  3,  12,  8;  Rohde,  1,  133)  seem  to 
indicate;  that  there  was  a  new  influx  of  incubation  influences  into  Greece 
from  the  Orient  and  Egypt  in  historic  times,  but  that  it  merely  developed 
and  spread  practices  which  were  already  known  to  the  Greeks  before  the 
historic  period.  For  the  kernel  of  incubation  is  the  belief  that  the  dream 
comes  from  heaven. 

26Cf.  Od.  20,  87  ff.;   Rohde,  1,  7;   Hey,  10. 

*^Their  theories  would  establish  the  basis  of  dream  activity  in  memory, 
in  internal  psychic  processes.  In  this  Aristotle  is  in  remarkable  accord 
with  modern  thought.  Cf.  Aristotle,  Ilepl  'Ewirvluv,  459a, 8,  17,  25;  461a, 
14  ff.;  25;  Biichsenschutz,  18-20;  and  Freud,  56  ff.  Freud's  Litera- 
turverzeichnis,  482-498,  is  comprehensive  and  valuable  for  a  study  of  the 
psychology  of  the  dream. 

^Uliad,  5,  150;  10,  496;  23,  62.  Cft  also  in  the  early  lyric,  Pindar, 
Pyth.  4,  163,  and  the  dream  of  Simonides  spoken  of  in  Cicero,  Div.  1,  27,  56. 

"Infra.  27. 


The  Iliad  9 

battles  which  the  poet  of  the  Iliad  details  at  length,  battles  in 
which  the  death  of  so  many  Greeks  expiates  the  contumely 
that  Achilles  was  forced  to  endure,  brings  the  latter  finally  back 
into  the  fray,  and  works  the  denouement  of  the  [Lriyiq.  Yet  in  all 
the  action  which  is  subsequent  to  the  appearance  of  the  dream 
each  separate  incident  is  directly  governed  by  some  deity,  or  by 
some  chance,  or  by  some  present  human  passion.  One  does  not 
realize  that  the  dream  exerts  any  influence  upon  the  plot  beyond 
that  shown  in  the  immediate  moves  of  Agamemnon.  There  is 
no  referring  back  and  forth  to  the  mandates  of  the  dream, 
comparable  with  what  one  finds  in  the  Aeneid,'^^  for  example,  to 
keep  it  ever  before  the  mind  of  the  reader  as  playing  an  imma- 
nent rdle  in  the  plot. 

Iliad,  10,  496-497 

A  dream  reference  of  much  less  moment  is  that  in  Iliad,  10, 
496-497.  The  content  of  the  vision  is  not  related.  Attention 
is  called  to  it  here  as  containing  a  few  points  of  artistic  interest. 

Hector  has  wrought  havoc  among  the  Greeks  and  has  driven 
them  to  their  ships,  far  from  the  city  of  Troy.  So  Diomedes 
chooses  Odysseus  for  a  foray,  under  cover  of  black  night,  into  the 

'•Compare  the  frequent  references  in  the  other  parts  of  the  Aeneid  to 
the  dreams  found  in  the  following  passages  and  the  cross-references  in 
the  dreams  themselves.  The  two  great  protagonists,  Carthage  and  Rome, 
are  brought  into  conflict  through  the  action  induced  by  dreams:  Dido, 
warned  by  Sychaeus  {Aen.  1,  353-359),  flees  from  Tyre  and  founds 
Carthage;  Aeneas,  on  the  night  of  the  sacking  of  Troy,  is  visited  in  a 
dream  by  Hector  (2,  270-297),  who  foretells  the  doom  of  Troy  and  the 
greatness  of  Rome.  The  troubled  ghost  of  Anchises  visits  Aeneas  nightly 
to  hurry  him  from  Carthage  (4,  351  ff.);  the  commands  of  this  ghost 
Aeneas  expressly  tells  his  father,  in  the  nekyia  of  the  sixth  book  (6,  695- 
696),  he  is  obeying.  See  also  3,  147-172;  4,  554-570;  6,  695-697;  8,  26- 
67.  Silius  Italicus,  who  adopts  the  whole  divine  machinery  for  his  his- 
torical epic,  slavishly  follows  Vergil  in  this  too;  cf.  3,  139;  4,  722-738; 
10,  337-386;  13,  56-62;  15,  1-151;  15,  546-559;  17,  158-169.  Rohde, 
1,  37,  has  pointed  out  that  the  souls  of  departed  heroes  never  encroach 
upon  the  guidance  of  the  poetic  action  in  Homer. 


10         The  Dream  in  Homer  and  Greek  Tragedy 

lines  of  the  Trojans,  to  slay  them,  or  else  to  discover  their  secrets. 
Odysseus  urges  haste,  saying  (252-253) : 

Twv  860  {jLOtpawv,  TpiTczTY]  S'  £Tt  ^oTpa  XeXsixTai. 

The  two,  going  forth,  come  upon  Dolon,  the  Trojan,  who  has 
left  his  tent  to  reconnoiter  the  position  of  the  Greeks.  They 
kill  him,  and  then  continue  on  their  way  till  they  reach  the 
encampment  of  the  Thracians,  whom  they  find  sunk  in  slumber. 
In  the  midst  of  these  was  Rhesus;  beside  him  were  his  swift 
horses  tethered  with  thongs  to  his  chariot.  Diomedes  rushed 
upon  them,  and,  after  slaying  twelve  of  the  king's  companions, 
put  Rhesus  himself  to  death:  'And  when  the  son  of  Tydeus 
came  to  the  king,  him,  the  thirteenth,  he  reft  of  delicious  life,  as 
he  gasped  in  his  sleep ;  for  an  evil  dream  stood  over  his  head  that 
night,  to  wit,  the  son  of  Oeneus,  through  the  crafty  device  of 
Athene'  (494-497)  .^o 

Here  again  appears  the  primitive  conception;  the  dream  is 
external  to  the  sleeper,  personal,  objective.  It  takes  the  position 
usual  to  the  dream  in  literature  (496);^^  it  disguises  itself  in 
human  form  (497),  OJvstSao  xat?,^^  as  do  the  gods  often  in  their 

'"Hey,  12,  interprets  thus:  "Diomedes  stand  bei  Rhesos  als  KaKbv  6yap 
zu  Haupten".  Zuretti,  ad  loc,  interprets:  "OhetSao  irdis,  Tideo;  irdi's 
k  apposizione  di  6vap,  e  rargomento,  per  cosi  dire,  del  sogno".  With 
this  latter  interpretation  I  am  inclined  to  agree,  if  497  is  genuine.  Cf. 
also  Ameis-Hentze,  Anhang,  on  this  line.  Aristonicus  (ed.  Friedlander, 
183)  athetized  497:  ddereTrai,  6ti  xal  ry  <rvv64aei  euTeXiJj*  kuI  fiij  fi7]64yTos 
8i  voeirai  8ti  us  6vap  i<f>l<TTaTai  T(p  'Pijcy  6  Aiofxi^dris.  Kal  t6  did.  fiiJTiv'Adi^v'^s 
\vv€i;  fxaWov  ydp  Sid  r^v  AdXupos  dvayyeXlav.  Zuretti  says,  on  'Ad-^vris: 
"era  crudele;  voler  I'uccisione  e  il  dolore  e  la  quasi  coscienza  d'essa, 
almeno  in  sogno,  h  crudelta  raffinata",  which  seems  nearer  the  mean- 
ing of  the  poet  here.  Zuretti  remarks  on  KetpaXijcpiv :  "nella  personificazione 
del  sogno  esso  h  immaginato  pendere  sul  capo;  in  altri  tempi  I'incubo 
^  creduto  sul  petto". 

^^Ci.  Iliad,  2,  20;  2,59;   supra,  6,  n.  22. 

"Cf.  Iliad,  2,  20-22;  2,  58;   supra,  6. 


The  Iliad  11 

visits  to  men.^*  But  it  has  no  determining  influence  on  the 
further  development  of  the  story.  It  is,  however,  as  before,^ 
introduced  at  a  critical  point  in  the  action,  namely  the  entrance 
of  Rhesus.  For  an  oracle  had  declared  that  Troy  could  not  be 
taken  if  once  the  horses  of  the  Thracian  king  had  fed  upon  the 
grass  of  the  Trojan  plain  and  had  drunk  the  water  of  the 
Xanthus.  The  fulfilment  of  this  oracle  is  forestalled  by  the 
quick  action  of  Diomedes;  and  the  d5dng  Thracian  king  takes 
the  substance  of  his  dream  to  the  grave  with  him.  Hence  it 
plays  no  part  in  the  structure  of  the  plot. 

The  deity  who  sends  the  dream  is  here  Athene,  not  Zeus,  as  in 
the  other  passages  of  this  earlier  work;^^  and  the  receiver  is  a 
male,  as  is  the  rule  throughout  the  Iliad.^^ 

Another  point  of  interest  in  this  passage  is  the  time  at  which 
the  dream  appeared.  This  we  may  deduce  from  the  time  at 
which  the  Greeks  set  out  upon  their  reconnoitering.  This  was 
during  the  third  watch  of  the  night,  according  to  line  253,^^  or,  if, 
as  some  maintain,  that  line  is  spurious,  near  dawn,  according  to 
line  251,  a  line  generally  considered  genuine.  Hence  the  evil 
dream  came  after  midnight.  If,  now,  the  adjective  xaxdv  in  verse 
496  means  'foretelling  evil  fate  to  him',  the  time  of  the  dream's 
appearance  is  without  significance.     If  on  the  other  hand  the 

»3Cf.  Iliad,  16,  715;   17,  322;   Od.  1,  96;   see  also  footnote  23. 

s^Supra,  8;   infra,  n.  200. 

"In  the  other  passages  in  the  Iliad  where  a  sender  is  mentioned  Zeus 
is  the  responsible  divinity:  1,  63;  2,  1  ff.  (supra,  6).  Athene's  activity 
here  is  an  anticipation  of  her  activity  in  dream  sending  in  the  Odyssey: 
cf.  infra,  24;   51. 

"The  6i/etpo7r6Xos  of  1,  63;  Agamemnon,  in  2,  1-47;  Achilles,  in  23.  62- 
107;   Rhesus,  in  10,  496.     Infra.  27. 

37 This  line  was  rejected  as  spurious  by  the  Alexandrian  trio,  Zenodotus, 
Aristophanes,  Aristarchus.  Fick,  in  his  comments  on  252-253,  rejects 
both  lines,  partly  on  linguistic  and  syntactical  grounds,  partly  on  the 
authority  of  the  above-named  trio.  Leaf,  La  Roche  and  others,  however, 
retain  line  253  and  suggest  numerous  explanations  of  the  syntax  and 
interpretation.     See  their  notes  ad  loc. 


12 


The  Dream  in  Homer  and  Greek  Tragedy 


X 


adjective  means  rather  'deceptive',  'untrue',  then  the  hour  be- 
comes important,  for  elsewhere4ll  the  Greek  and  Roman  poets 
place  deceitful  dreams  before  midnight.^Y  Homer's  introduc- 
tion of  a  deceitful  dream  just  before  dawn  would  then  indicate 
that  the  opposing  folk-belief  and  artistic  convention  were  later 
in  origin  than  the  early  epic.^^  But  this  is  pure  conjecture;  with 
a  restraint  which  he  does  not  always  feel  necessary  the  poet  has 
refused  the  knowledge  of  Rhesus'  inmost  thoughts  and  the 
content  of  the  dream  is  not  given.  And  without  that  content 
one  cannot  control  the  meaning  of  the  adjective  xaxov  or 
determine  during  what  portion  of  the  night  Homer  would  have 
thought  of  deceitful  dreams  as  sent  by  the  gods. 


Iliad,  23,  62-107 

Another  example  of  the  objective  dream  in  the  Iliad  is  the 
appearance  of  Patroclus  to  Achilles,  in  Book  23.  This  is  the 
starting  point  in  European  literature  for  the  apparition  of  the  dead 

^^Cf.  Moschus,  Idyll,  1,  2-5:  uvKxbs  dre  rplraTov  Xdxos  laTaTaL,  iyyiidi  8* 
i^c&s,  .  .  .  e5re  Kal  drpeKitav  iroiixalveTai  idvo$  dvelpuv;  Horace,  Sat.  1,  10, 
33:  post  mediam  noctem  visus,  cum  somnia  vera;  Ovid,  Her.  18, 
195-196:  Namque  sub  aurora,  iam  dormitante  lucerna,  Somnia  quo 
cemi  tempore  vera  solent;  Tertullian,  De  An.  48;  Philostratus,  Apollo- 
nius  of  Tyana,  2,  37.  Vergil,  Aen.  6,  898,  indicates  the  time  of 
Aeneas'  exit  from  the  lower  world  by  dismissing  him  through  the 
gate  of  false  dreams,  i.e.  before  midnight  (this  explanation  of  the 
Vergilian  passage  was  suggested  by  W.  Everett,  Class.  Review,  14, 
153  ff.  It  has  been  accepted  by  C.  Knapp,  Vergil's  Aeneid  [Chicago,  1901], 
by  T.  E.  Page,  Aeneid"^  [London,  1902],  and  by  Norden  in  his  exhaustive 
commentary  on  Aeneid  6)^Seasons  also  affected  the  reliability  of  dreams: 
autumn  dreams  were  generally  considered  deceitful,  spring  dreams  most 
probable  of  fulfilment/  cf .  TertulHan,  loc.  laud. :  Ex  temporibus  autem 
anni  vemo  magis  quieta,  quod  aestas  dissolvit  animas  et  hiems  quodam- 
modo  obduret,  et  autumnus  tentator  alias  valetudinem  succis  pomorum 
vinosissimis  diluat;  Alciphron,  Ep.  2,  2  (ed.  Schepers,  Leipzig,  1905); 
Plutarch,  Quaest.   Conv.  8,  734D;    Buchsenschiitz,  37-38;    Granger,  32, 

'9Cf.  the  note  on  Horace,  Sat.  1,  10,  31-35,  in  Kiessling-Heinze^  and 
the  standard  editions  on  the  other  passages  in  the  preceding  note. 


The  Iliad  13 

in  dreams}^    The  ghost  appeared  when  deep  (v^oujjloc;,  63)  sleep 
had  laid  hold  upon  Achilles.^^    The  specter  of  Patroclus,  <]^ux^,  is 

*°The  influence  of  dream  experiences  upon  the  belief  in  immortality  and 
the  conceptions  of  the  other  world  is  of  great  importance  and  generally 
recognized.  The  body  of  the  sleeper  lay,  in  the  eyes  of  his  friends,  un- 
moved; but,  on  awaking,  the  sleeper  told  of  the  journeys  he  had  made 
and  the  marvels  he  had  seen.  From  this  primitive  man  postulated  a 
second  self  or  soul,  or  a  plurality  of  souls.  The  things  which  the  sleeping 
soul  had  seen  were  no  less  real  than  the  sights  which  met  the  eyes  of  the 
waking  self,  only  different.  Or  else  objects  appeared  before  the  sleeper 
or  a  companion  returned  to  him  from  the  house  of  the  dead  to  tell  him 
what  his  experiences  had  been  and  where  he  was.  From  this  primitive 
man  assumed  a  Hades  or  an  Elysium.  The  sights  reported  by  the  return- 
ing soul  of  the  ghost  and  the  places  visited  by  the  wandering  soul  of  the 
dreamer  became  merged,  and  from  this  merging  grew  the  picture  of  the 
other  world.  Now  the  elements  for  that  picture  came  from  the  mind  of 
the  sleeper  and  so,  as  his  waking  life  increased  in  complexity,  his  picture 
of  Hades  kept  pace  with  it.  The  trance  and  the  ecstasy  were  physical 
conditions  the  experiences  of  which  strengthened  this  belief.  It  is  an 
antiquated  anthropology  which  traces  all  of  the  elements  of  these  concep- 
tions back  to  dream  experiences,  but  no  school  denies  to  dream  experiences 
the  great  and  influential  part  they  played.  Plato's  sublime  myth  of 
immortality,  the  vision  of  Er  {Res  Publica,  614b),  evolves  the  picture 
of  the  future  life  from  the  experiences  of  the  trance,  as  does  Plutarch's 
vision  of  Thespesius  {De  Sera  Num.  Vind.  22) ;  Cicero's  Somnium  Scipionis 
evolves  it  from  the  dream.  The  nekyia  once  established  drew  features 
from  all  sides  and  was  told  in  many  settings.  For  example,  in  the  Culex, 
202-384,  the  spirit  of  the  murdered  gnat  appears  to  its  murderer  in  a 
dream  and  gives  him  a  description  of  Hades.  For  further  theory  or  com- 
ment see  de  Felice,  119  ff.;  Gomperz,  1,  18  ff.;  25;  32;  33;  Dieterich, 
Nekyia  (passim);  Spencer,  1,  147  ff.;  3,  7  ff. ;  3,  22  ff.;  Rohde,  2,  392-393; 
V.  G.  Ettig,  Acheruntica  (cited  by  de  Felice),  360.     See,  also,  n.  102. 

*^The  passage  has  been  accepted  by  Fick,  202,  but  rejected  by  many 
others.  The  crux  lies  in  the  occurrence  here  of  a  conception  which  is 
in  direct  opposition  to.  the  views  stated  elsewhere  in  the  Iliad,  and  also 
in  the  Odyssey  (with  the  exception  of  the  Elpenor  episode,  Od.  11,  51  ff.), 
the  conception  that  the  souls  of  the  dead  must  await  burial  before  entering 
Hades.  In  all  other  portions  of  the  poems  the  belief  holds  that  the  soul 
enters  Hades  immediately  on  leaving  the  body,  without  the  fulfilment  of 
any  previous  condition.  The  idea  involved  in  the  opposite  belief  rested 
on  the  assumption  that  it  was  necessary  entirely  to  bum  the  body  so  that 


14         The  Dream  in  Homer  and  Greek  Tragedy 

the  counterpart  of  the  living  Patrodus  in  stature,  fair  eyes,  and 
voice.^2  Though  a  <\)uxri  (65),  it  has  a  body  (67) ;  it  stands  above 
Achilles'  head  (68),  as  each  of  the  dream  forms  discussed  above 
stood  over  the  head  of  him  to  whom  it  had  been  sent  (2,  20 ;  2,  59 ; 
10,  496);'^^  it  cannot  enter  the  gates  of  Hades,  for  the  other 
souls  keep  it  afar  off  (72)  ;^  these  souls  are  e'tSwXa  xatxovTwv  (72), 
phantom.s,  illusive  images  of  dead  men;  by  the  action  of  these 
phantoms  Patroclus  is  not  allowed  to  cross  the  river  (73)  f^  the 
ghost  asks  for  Achilles'  hand.  This  is  not  the  customary 
gesture  at  parting,  but  the  soul  desires,  in  view  of  their  separa- 

the  soul  freed  from  it  could  come  to  rest.  On  the  ground  of  this  difference 
Lange,  Nitzsch,  Kammer  reject  the  lines  which  contain  the  conflicting 
conception  and  Kiene  considers  the  whole  narrative  of  the  appearance  of 
the  ghost  of  Patroclus  foreign  to  the  original  Iliad.  (For  the  views  of  these 
critics,  see  the  Einleitung  to  Book  23  in  the  Anhang  of  Ameis-Hentze). 

*2The  ghosts  of  the  dead,  whether  seen  in  the  lower  world  or  appearing 
in  dreams,  retain  the  marks  of  the  wounds  by  which  they  came  to  their 
death  or  the  traces  of  the  funeral  fires  by  which  their  bodies  were  destroyed. 
This  idea  is  naive  and  universal.  It  is  said  that  the  Chinese  mutilate 
their  criminals  so  that  their  spirits  may  forever  carry  their  disgraceful 
wounds.  Professor  K.  F.  Smith's  fine  note  on  Tibullus,  1,  10,  37-38  (in 
his  edition  of  Tibullus,  New  York,  1913),  discusses  this  primitive  belief. 
The  idea  recurs  in  the  Oresteia  fragment  of  Stesichorus  (fr.  42,  ed.  Bergk), 
where  Agamemnon  appears  in  a  dream  in  the  form  of  a  serpent  bearing 
on  its  head  wounds  from  Clytaemestra's  ax.  Vergil  repeats  it  in  his 
description  of  Hector,  Aen.  2,  270-297.  See  also,  6,  450;  498.  The 
elegists,  perhaps  under  Alexandrian  influence,  carried  further  the  identifi- 
cation of  corpse  or  ashes  and  surviving  wraith :  Tibullus,  3,2;  Propertius, 
1,19,18;  2,13,32;  58;  3,5,30;  4,5,4;  4,7,12;  94;  4,11,3;  8;  20; 
58;  Ovid,  Met.  10,  49;  11,  691;  Persius,  1,  38;  Silius  Italicus,  12,  457. 
See  also  Hardie,  94-95. 

43Supra,  6;    10. 

*^The  demand  of  the  weary  soul,  that  would  enter  Hades,  for  burial  is 
paralleled  in  the  early  literature  by  the  dream  of  Pelias  in  regard  to  Phrixus, 
Pindar,  Pyth.  4,  163  (infra,  66).  See  also,  for  a  similar  conception,  Euri- 
pides, Hec.  30  (infra,  85).  This  idea  appears  innumerable  times  in  the 
later  literature. 

"Always  the  Styx  in  the  Iliad;  in  Odyssey,  10,  513,  Acheron  is  men- 
tioned. 


The  Iliad  15 

tion  forever,  to  give  by  this  unusual  form  of  leave-taking  a  more 
powerful  expression  to  their  feeling  of  nearness.'*^  In  making 
this  request  the  soul  wishes  something  incompatible  with  its 
nature  (99  fif .) ;  it  cannot  return  from  Hades  after  it  has  been 
given  to  the  fire  (75-76).  The  soul  has  a  wider  vision  than 
Patroclus  had  possessed  in  life;  it  knows  now  that  bitter  fate 
surrounded  it  even  from  birth  (78-79);  it  prophesies  that 
Achilles,  too,  is  doomed  to  die  beneath  the  walls  of  Troy 
(80-81).^^  One  last  request  it  makes,  that  its  bones  shall  not 
be  buried  apart  from  those  of  Achilles  (83),  but  that  a  common 
cinerary  urn  (91)  shall  contain  their  ashes,  that  in  death  they 
may  lie  together  even  as  in  life  they  had  been  reared  together. 
Achilles  thereupon  asks  the  spirit  why  it  has  come  to  him  with 
such  commands  (94-95),  promises  to  execute  its  every  injunc- 
tion (95-96),  and  finally  entreats  Patroclus'  spirit  to  stand 
nearer  so  that  they  may  embrace  each  other  and  share  their 
grief  in  common  (97-98).  Upon  stretching  out  his  arms  to 
seize  the  spirit  of  his  friend,  Achilles  failed  in  his   attempt,** 

^®Cynthia's  ghost,  Propertius,  4,  7,  94,  will  rub  bone  on  bone,  mixtis 
ossibus  ossa  teram. 

*^Sucli  prophetic  power  shows  itself  in  dying  heroes.  In  Iliad,  22,  356- 
360,  Hector,  at  the  point  of  death,  foretells  to  the  exulting  Achilles  that 
the  latter  will  die  at  the  hands  of  Paris  and  Phoebus  Apollo,  a  more  definite 
prophecy  than  that  here  uttered  by  the  returning  wraith  of  Patroclus. 
The  wraith  had  shown  this  prophetic  power,  also,  when  at  the  point  of 
death  he  foretold  to  his  foe,  Hector,  that  he  would  fall  at  the  hands  of 
Achilles:  see  Iliad,  16,  851  ff.  Cf.  Cicero,  Div.  1,  30,  62-65;  Diodorus 
Siculus,  18,  1  (ed.  Fischer,  Leipzig,  1896). 

^^Lines  93-98  are  rejected  by  Kammer,  505  f.,  as  a  later  interpolation. 
But  this  view  has  not  found  acceptance;  for,  if  93-98  be  eliminated,  then 
it  is  the  spirit  of  Patroclus  which  stretches  out  its  hands,  not  Achilles, 
and  ypvx-fi  (100)  would  be  the  subject  of  wp^^aro  (99)  and  vx^^'o-  But 
it  is  only  by  stretching  out  his  arms  that  Achilles  can  make  the  dis- 
covery which  he  records  in  line  104.  It  is  the  effort  to  clasp  the  spirit 
which  wakes  him.  A  similar  physical  eflfort  arouses  the  charioteer  in  the 
Rhesus,  780-788;  infra,  97. 


16         The  Dream  in  Homer  and  Greek  Tragedy 

for  the  soul,  like  smoke,  departed  beneath  the  earth,  gibbering 
(TSTptyuTa,  101).'*^ 

So  powerfully  does  the  vision  affect  Achilles  that  he  is  stirred 
from  slumber  (101)  and  cries  out  in  the  famous  lines,  so  impor- 
tant for  a  correct  understanding  of  the  Homeric  theory  of  the 
nature  of  the  soul  after  death  if  they  were  not  so  baffling  to 
positive  exegesis  (103-104) : 

fi>  x6tcoi,  ^  pa  t(<;  iczi  xal  s^v  'AtSao  S6(JL0t(jt 
^iJXh  '^'^^  s'iBo)Xov,iT(zp  ^gheq  o5x  evi  xa^iTcav. 

The  three  words  which  cause  the  difficulty  are  t^tuxh,  s'^BwXov,  and 
^gheq.  Hardly  two  scholars  can  be  found  in  agreement  con- 
cerning the  meaning  of  any  of  them.^*^    The  common  sense 

^^This  word  is  used  of  the  cracking  of  the  backs  of  wrestlers,  Iliad,  23, 
714.  Elsewhere  in  the  early  epic  it  is  confined  to  the  sounds  uttered 
by  birds:  in  Iliad,  2,  314,  it  is  the  noise  made  by  the  young  of  the  sparrow. 
Ameis-Hentze,  Anhang,  take  the  word  to  mean  in  Iliad,  23, 101,  "zirpend", 
remarking  :  "denn  auch  die  Stimme  der  Psyche  ist  nur  ein  schwaches 
Abbildder  Stimme  des  Lebenden".  This,  however,  is  probably  not  the 
meaning.  In  Od.  24,  1-10,  souls  are  likened  to  bats  in  action  and  utterance; 
rpl^o)  is  there  used  of  both  bats  and  souls.  Vergil,  Aen.Q,  282-284,  pictures 
dreams  clinging  (batlike)  beneath  every  leaf  of  an  elm  in  the  entrance  to 
Hades.  Cf.  also,  Euripides,  Hec.  70-71;  Silius  Italicus,  13,  595-600. 
This  likening  of  souls,  dreams,  and  kindred  conceptions  to  birds  is  an 
ancient  bit  of  folk-lore.  Homer,  in  using  TerpiyvTa,  was  writing  under 
the  influence  of  that  conception.  See  below,  note  184,  for  bibliography. 
Add  Granger,  42;  and  44:  "There  was  an  old  belief  that  dreams  became 
false  at  the  fall  of  the  leaf". 

'°The  materials  for  a  reconstruction  of  the  Homeric  view  of  life  after 
death  and  the  nature  of  the  soul  are  the  accounts  of  the  funerals  of  Patroclus 
and  of  Hector,  Iliad  23  and  24  respectively,  the  two  nekyiae  in  the  Odyssey, 
11  and  24,  and  smaller  references  throughout.  Rohde  has  distinguished 
sharply  two  conceptions  of  the  departed  soul,  which  he  designates  as  the 
ghost  faith  and  the  shade  faith,  and  these  demand,  he  declares,  a  radically 
different  treatment  of  the  corse.  The  former  conception  is  that  the 
soul  can  return  to  its  old  home  and  haunt  the  living.  It  is  capable  of 
doing  immense  and  unearthly  injury;  it  is  a  ghost  which  must  be  placated 
by  offerings  of  clothing  and  food  and  all  the  things  the  living  man  had 
needed.     Mummification  was  practiced  to  preserve  for  the  ghost  its  old 


The  Iliad  17 

interpretation,  however,  seems  to  be  that  tj^ux^  is  adequately 
represented  here  by  'soul'.  It,  among  the  Greeks,  as  among  all 
primitive  peoples,  escapes  out  of  the  mouth  of  the  dying  or  the 
wound  of  the  mortally  wounded.^i     With  the  rise  of  Pytha- 

abode  to  which  it  might  return.     Ancestor  worship  was  naturally  conjoined 
with  such  a  behef.     The  'shade  faith'  was  based  on  entirely  different 
premises,  to  wit,  that  the  spirit  can  be  absolutely  banished  from  earth 
and  shut  up  in  Hades,  whence  it  cannot  return  to  help  or  to  harm  the 
living.     Starting  from  this  conception,   relatives  burned  the  body  to 
cut  the  spirit  off  all  the  more  from  communication  with  the  living.     When 
the  body  was  once  reduced  to  ashes,  the  soul  no  longer  constituted  a 
menace.    As  a  resultant  there  was  no  offering  of  gifts  to  the  dead  and  no 
form  of  ancestor  worship.     The  first  of  these  beliefs  is  primitive  and 
unreflecting;    as  including  ancestor  worship,  it  is  the  most  extensively 
held  of  all  faiths  (cf.  e.g.  W.  Crooke,  Popular  Religion  and  Folk-Lore  of 
Northern  India,  1,  175  [London,  1896]).     The  part  the  dream  has  played 
in  developing  such  a  faith  Spencer  has  demonstrated  and  exaggerated 
(see  his  indices).     The  second  is  the  belief  of  a  more  advanced  people — 
the  product  of  intellectual  growth  and  reflection.     These  beliefs  exist 
nowhere  pure,  and  least  of  all  in  Greece  during  any  period  which  can  be 
controlled  by  literary  evidence.     In  the  epic  the  predominant  belief, 
however,  was  the  shade  faith;    for  this  period  there  is  little  evidence  for 
the  cult  of  ancestors,  or  for  a  belief  in  the  power  of  the  dead  to  return  and 
work  vague  but  terrible  injury.     To  the  shade  faith  belongs  the  account 
of  the  funeral  of  Hector,  Iliad,  24,  718-804,  completely.     But  such  consis- 
tency is  not  universal  and  there  are  numerous  traces  of  the  survival  of  the 
older  ghost  belief.   To  it  the  description  of  the  funeral  of  Patroclus  does  not 
entirely  belong,  nor  is  this  description  a  conscious  reconcihation  of  the  older 
and  the  newer  conceptions,  as  Lang  (82-107)  cleverly  maintains  by  assigning 
a  short  period  during  which  the  soul  can  return  to  earth  before  it  is  finally 
confined  to  Hades — a  period  for  giving  gifts  to  the  dead,  a  period,  however, 
to  be  made  as  brief  as  possible  for  the  sake  of  the  dead  itself.    Rather 
is  it  a  cento  of  elements  from  both  conceptions.     The  burning  on  the 
pyre  belongs  to  the  later  shade  belief;  the  sacrifice  of  horses,  cattle,  hunt- 
ing dogs,  Trojan  captives,  the  offerings  of  two-handled  jars  of  honey  and 
oil  (23,  166-177),  the  promise  of  Achilles  that  he  will  give  to  Patroclus  a 
share  of  the  ransom  for  the  dead  body  of  Hector  (24,  592-595),  are  all 
survivals  of  the  ghost  belief.     A  knowledge  of  these  conflicting  elements 
is  necessary  for  an  understanding  of  the  account  of  the  Patroclus  dream. 

"Examples  of  this  are  found  in //iW,  9,  409;  14,319;  16,505. 


18         The  Dream  in  Homer  and  Greek  Tragedy 

goreanism  it  was  considered  the  real  self,  the  personaHty,  which 
entered  into  each  incarnation.^^ 

The£T§w>.ov,  'wraith',  is  the  part  which  endures  when  the  body- 
disintegrates;  it  is,  so  to  say,  the  Platonic  'idea'  of  the  dead 
person.  It  is  similar  to  the  wraith  of  Helen  which  Stesichorus^^ 
pictured,  in  his  recantation,  to  explain  the  Trojan  war ;  similar 
to  the  phantom  of  Helen  in  Euripides'  Helena^^  which  went  to 
Troy  with  Paris;  similar  to  the  ghost  (s't'BwXov)  of  the  mighty 
Heracles,  which  Odysseus  met  in  Hades  while  the  real  soul  of  the 
hero  was  away  banqueting  with  the  immortal  gods;^^  similar  to 
the  phantom,  fashioned  in  the  likeness  of  Iphthime,  which 
Athene  sent  to  the  anxious  Penelope.^^  It  is  the  same  as  the 
fades  of  Anchises  which  appears  to  Aeneas  in  the  fifth  book  of 
the  Aeneid,^"^  for  this  fades  is  not  the  f^uxi},  the  anima,  of  Anchises, 
in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  poet,  a  few  lines  further  on,^^  makes 

^^W.  R.  Hardie  {The  Classical  Quarterly,  193-195),  in  a  discussion 
of  the  dream  in  the  proem  toEnnius'  Annates,  1,  i,  v  and  xi  (Vahlen) ,  where 
Homer  appears  to  the  Roman  poet,  assumes  that  it  can  only  be  a  wraith 
of  Homer,  an  etdwXov,  which  thus  appears;  that  the  real  self,  the  ^vx"^, 
weqit,  according  to  Ennius'  Pythagorean  tenets,  into  each  of  the  successive 
reincarnations  and  that  it  was  only  the  etduXov  of  a  particular  reincarna- 
tion that  could  appear  to  the  dreamer. 

^I  refer  to  the  fragment  from  the  Helena  palinode,  Bergk,  26.  The 
story  of  the  et8<a\ov  of  Helen  rested  upon  the  conflicting  legends  in  regard 
to  her  adventures  after  she  had  been  carried  away  from  the  home  of 
Menelaus.  One  legend,  the  Homeric  story,  took  her  to  Troy;  another, 
of  like  currency,  took  her  to  Egypt.  Herodotus,  2,  112-120,  tells  the 
Egyptian  version  at  considerable  length  and  discusses  Homer's  reason 
for  choosing  the  Trojan  legend.  That  Stesichorus  made  use  of  the  legend 
of  the  wraith  is  a  conjecture  of  Hardie's  (see  n.  52). 

^*See  Euripides,  Helena,  582:  'EX^vi;:  oi>K  TjXdov  is  yrjv  T/oyd5',  dXX'  eUuiXov 
^y.  Especially  pertinent  are  608-615,  where  the  messenger  reports  how 
the  €l8b}\ov  escaped  them  and  went  to  heaven,  announcing  that  Helen 
was  guiltless  and  had  never  gone  to  Troy. 

^^Od.  11,  602. 

^^Od.  4,  795  ff.     Compare  below,  24-28. 

"Vergil,  Aen.  5,  722-723. 

^^Aeneid,  5,  731. 


The  Iliad  19 

the  phantom  speak  as  if  it  were  the  anima.  It  is  the  eTBwXov, 
since  it  comes  down  from  Heaven  {caelo  .  .  .  delapsa,  722), 
whereas  the  VergiHan  Elysivim  is  consistently  represented  as 
subterranean.  It  is  an  s'fSwXov  by  which  Juno  lures  Tumus 
from  battle.^^  It  is  the  s'l'gwXov,  says  Pindar,  which  alone 
remains  throughout  all  time.^° 

In  regard  to  ^ghzq  the  strife  among  scholars  has  been  between 
the  meaning  'Lebenskraft'  (Ameis-Hentze)^^  and  the  meaning 
'intelligence',  to  8tavoY]Ttx6v  (Leaf).^^  j^  spite  of  the  ingenuity 
of  the  critics  o6x  evi  lua^xxav  seems  to  me  to  exclude  the  latter 
interpretation.  The  ghost  does  give  evidence  of  possessing 
memory,  perception,  thought,  if  not  omniscience;  what  it  lacks 
is  shown  to  Achilles  by  his  inability  to  grasp  it.  The  corporeal 
substance  together  with  the  life  principle  inherent  therein  has 
left  the  ghost. 

And  so  this  dream  apparition  has  a  «];uxt),  an  airy  soul,  and  a 
shadowy  wraith,  or  eTBwXov,  but  it  is  unsubstantial  and  there  is 
no  life-giving  principle  in  it.  Its  intelligence,  if  in  some  respects 
greater  than  that  of  the  living  person,  is  not  all-knowing :  it 
has  not  the  full  report  of  what  has  been  happening  on  earth; 
the  ghost  of  Patroclus  is  quite  unaware  of  the  grief  Achilles  has 
suffered  and  of  the  preparations  which  he  has  made  fittingly  to 
celebrate  the  ftmeral  of  his  comrade.     This,  then,  is  the  artistic 

^^Aeneid,  10,  636  ff.  See  Hardie  (cited  in  note  52),  188-195,  for 
a  more  detailed  discussion  of  some  of  these  passages. 

•°Fr.  131  (ed.  Schroeder):  ^tjbv  S'  ^n  Xelirerai  alQvos  etduXov.  That 
the  distinction  between  ^ux^  and  etduXov  was  not  always  clearly  drawn 
is  shown  by  the  words  with  which  Plutarch  {Consol.  ad  A  poll.  35,  120) 
introduces  the  above  fragment:  iv  AXXy  5/)iJi'v,  irepl  ypvxv^  X^yuv. 
Kammer,  516  f.,  decides  that  the  common  belief  assumed  no  life,  not 
even  dream  life,  after  death,  and  so  sees  in  this  dream- vision  of  Achilles 
a  marked  advance  on  the  theory  prevalent  in  the  poet's  day. 

"Anhang:  "im  Gegensatz  zur  luftigen  ^vx'^  und  zum  schattenhaften 
tid<a\ov  das  Zwerchfell  als  feste  Substanz  und  Haupttrager  des  physischen, 
wie  des  geistigen  Lebens  gedacht". 

«2,  621. 


/ 


20         The  Dream  in  Homer  and  Greek  Tragedy 

theory  that  hes  behind  the  picture  which  the  poet  draws  of  the 
dream  ghost. 

No  deity  sends  this  ghost. ^^  The  dream  comes  of  its  own 
voHtion.  The  cause  which  brings  it  is  a  personal  one,  a  desire 
of  the  restless  spirit  to  enter  the  gates  of  Hades  and  be  at  peace 
(71) .  Perhaps  this  explains  why  this  dream  plays  so  small  a  part 
in  advancing  the  plot.  The  machinery  of  the  action  of  the 
Iliad  is  frankly  controlled  from  Olympus.  Whatever  does  not 
emanate  from  that  source  may  create  a  powerful  episode  or 
adorn  an  attractive  incident,  but  it  does  not  play  a  large  r61e 
in  shaping  the  outlines  of  the  story.  But,  though  the  dream 
under  consideration  does  not  affect  the  economy  of  the  poem,  it 
is,  considered  by  itself,  a  truly  Homeric  dream  of  the  early, 
objective,  naive  kind.  The  description  of  Achilles,  as  he  awakes 
and  cries  aloud,  impresses  us  with  this  external  and  objective 
origin  of  the  dream. 

Iliad,  22,  199-200 

Of  far  different  type  is  the  dream  conception  in  Iliad,  22, 
199-200: 

OUT*  ap*  6  t6v  BuvaTat  6xo(l)£uystv  ou0*  6  Stwxstv*^* 


^Seldom  is  a  deity  mentioned  as  sender  of  the  vision  when  the  dead 
appear  in  dreams.  One  is  often  left  to  infer  that  the  dead  themselves 
are  responsible  for  the  dream- visitation ;  of.,  for  this  early  period,  Darius 
in  Aeschylus,  Pers.  176  ff.  (infra,  60  ff.);  Agamemnon  in  the  Choeph. 
526  ff.  (infra,  70  ff.)  and  also  in  the  Oresteia  fragment  of  Stesichorus 
(infra,  73 ;  quoted  below,  82) ,  Bergk,  42 ;  Clytaemestra  in  the  Eumen.  94  ff . 
(infra,  74  ff.);  Phryxus  in  Pindar,  Pyth.  4,  163  ff.;  Agamemnon  in  the 
Electra  of  Sophocles,  417-425  (infra,  79  ff.) ;  Polydorus  in  Euripides,  Hec. 
1-58;  the  dead  unknown,  to  Simonides  in  the  story  told  by  Cicero,  Div. 
1,  27,  56.  The  instances  in  the  later  period,  for  both  Greek  and  Latin 
literature,  are  innumerable.  The  Aeneid  will  illustrate  for  the  Roman 
epic:  Sychaeus  in  1,  353;  Hector  in  2,  270-297;  Dido's  threat,  4,  384; 
Anchisesin4,  351;   5,721-740;   6,695-697. 

"Compare  the  similar  conception  in  Aen.  12,  908-914,  evidently  copied 
from  this  and  expanded. 


The  Iliad  21 

We  have  here  a  dream  reference  which  is  very  modem  in  its  tone 
and  in  the  phenomenon  which  it  notices.  It  is  the  description 
of  a  dream  state.  That  is  to  say,  the  dream  in  this  passage  has 
lost  all  personality ;  there  is  no  dream  phantom  or  dream  daimon. 
The  vision-experience  exists  only  in  the  mind  of  the  sleeper. 
Achilles  is  pursuing  Hector  under  the  walls  of  Troy  and  his 
inability  to  overtake  him  is  likened  by  the  poet  to  the  attempted 
pursuits  and  escapes  of  our  dreams.  Into  the  psychological  and 
philosophical  conception  upon  which  this  phenomenon  is  based 
I  have  no  intention,  at  this  time,  of  going.^^    But  from  an  artis- 

^^For  the  study  atrthe  science  and  philosophy  of  the  dream  and  its 
use  in  cult  one  may  compare,  on  the  Greek  side,  the  following  monographs: 
B.  Biichsenschutz  (94  pages);  F.  O.  Hey  (40  pages);  F.  O.  Hey,  Religion 
(60  pages).  The  short  treatise  by  Biichsenschiitz  is  to  a  certain  extent 
antiquated;  it  antedates  the  vast  amount  of  work  that  has  been  done  in 
Greek  philosophy,  and  especially  on  the  philosophic  fragments,  during 
the  last  fifty  years.  Nevertheless  it  was  based  on  a  fresh  examination 
of  the  sources  which  he  had  before  him  and  his  work  is  still  to  be  super- 
seded. He  traces  the  history  of  the  scientific  theory  of  the  dream  down 
through  the  Ionic  and  Eleatic  schools,  Pythagoras,  Democritus,  Socrates, 
Xenophon,  Plato,  Aristotle  and  the  Peripatetics,  the  Epicureans,  the 
Stoics,  early  and  late,  the  physicians  (Galen,  etc.).  He  then  turns  to  the 
books  containing  collections  of  dreams  and  their  interpretations,  conclud- 
ing with  a  resume  of  Artemidorus'  Onirocritica.  Hey's  two  short  mono- 
graphs were  written  later;  consequently  he  could  take  advantage  of  the 
vast  strides  which  had  been  made  in  the  study  of  anthropology  and  com- 
parative religion.  In  the  first  programm  he  studies  the  dream  from  the 
standpoint  of  cult  and  religion  as  found  (1)  in  the  Homeric  period,  (2)  on 
the  Greek  mainland  in  the  early  classical  period,  in  which  there  was 
interaction  of  oriental  and  native  elements,  and  (3)  in  incubation  and 
dream  interpretation  in  its  relation  to  medicine.  In  the  second  programm- 
he  traces  the  influence  of  the  dream  and  dream  experiences  in  fashioning 
the  reUgious  conceptions  of  the  Greeks.  He  shows,  however,  a  Spencerian 
overfondness  for  the  dream  in  attributing  to  it  a  much  greater  influence  in 
the  realm  of  religious  ideas  than  recent  scholars  are  willing  to  grant. 
Furthermore,  he  is  not  always  judicious  in  the  distinctions  which  he  draws 
between  the  conceptions  which  any  given  author  accepts  for  artistic 
purposes  and  the  scientific  explanation  of  dream  phenomena  which  that 
same  author  may  hold.  Literary  convention  often  causes  the  former  to 
limp  behind  the  latter.     There  are  accessible  no  corresponding  mono- 


22  The  Dream  in  Homer  and  Greek  Tragedy 

tic  standpoint,  certainly,  it  is  unlike  the  other  dream  pictures  of 
this  earlier  work,  which  are  so  clearly  external,  originating  from 
without  the  sleeper.  If,  as  Aristonicus,  Leaf,  Pick,  Bekker,  and 
Diintzer^^  maintain,  these  lines  are  a  later  addition,  we  find  in 
them  exactly  what  we  might  expect,  to  wit,  a  development  from 
the  more  primitive  and  lively  conception  of  the  personality  of 
the  dream,  such  as  we  see  in  Iliad  2,  to  the  belief,  belonging  to  a 
later,  more  reflective  period,  in  a  psychological  dream  state.^^ 

graphs  on  the  dream  in  Latin  literature.  In  Harvard  Studies  in  Classical 
Philology,  24,  163-164,  there  is  a  summary  of  an  unpublished  Harvard 
dissertation  by  S.  H.  Newhall,  Quid  De  Somniis  Censuerint  Quoque  Mode 
Eis  Usi  Sint  Antiqui  Quaeritur.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  this  dissertation, 
containing  valuable  epigraphical  material,  a  "complete  collection  of  dream 
inscriptions  and  dedications"  {ihid.  163),  may  before  long  be  made  more 
accessible  (see  the  indicated  volume  of  Harvard  Studies  for  an  outline  of 
Dr.  Newhall's  investigation).  On  the  narrower  side  of  incubation,  there 
are  two  fair-sized  treatises:  L.  Deubner,  De  Incubatione  Capitula  Quattuor 
(Leipzig,  1901),  a  painstaking,  careful  study.  Its  contents  are  indicated 
by  the  chapter  headings:  (1)  De  Somniis  Divinis,  (2)  De  Incubandi 
Ritibus  Symbolisque,  (3)  De  Carmine  Delphico  Euripideo,  (4)  De  Incuba- 
tione Christiana.  The  second  treatise  is  that  by  Mary  Hamilton,  Incuba- 
tion or  the  Cure  of  Disease  in  Pagan  Temples  and  Christian  Churches  (Lon- 
don, 1906).  Pp.  223.  The  treatment  is  popular  and  the  scope  of  the 
work  is  correctly  indicated  by  the  subtitle.  The  ground  is  covered  with 
intelligence,  but  without  originality,  and  the  citation  of  authorities  and 
sources  is  totally  unsatisfactory.  Henri  Lechat  in  Daremberg-Saglio, 
Incubatio,  can  also  be  consulted  with  profit.  In  addition  to  these  special 
treatises  there  is  much  to  be  gleaned,  from  general  works  in  a  larger  field, 
on  what  may  be  called  the  non-artistic  aspects  of  the  dream,  Greek  and 
Roman.  Of  particular  value  are  the  following:  Bouch^-Leclercq,  2,  251; 
260;  269;  301;  3,  76-77;  275;  310;  380-381;  Campbell,  144;  180; 
227;  231;  368;  De  Marchi,  1,  37;  238;  239;  240;  285-289;  Dill,  445; 
448-469;  Dyer,  235-248 ;  Gilbert,  251-252;  Gomperz,  1,  18ff.;  Gomperz, 
Essays,  72-79;  Granger,  28;  31-33;  35-37;  42;  44;  46;  48;  Hardie, 
Lectures,  71-84;  91;  94-95;  Maury,  Magie,  229-255;  Maury,  Histoire 
des  religions,  2,  U7&.;  Rohde,  1,  5;  37;  113-125;  131-134;  184;  186; 
189;   2,  57-58;   392-393. 

^^See  the  List  of  Abbreviations  for  the  full  titles  of  these  works.  The 
comments  to  which  I  refer  will  be  found  in  notes  on  lines  199-200. 

^^This  observation  hints  at  the  possible  bearing  of  the  artistic  form  in 
which  the  dream  is  found  upon  the  question  whether  a  given  passage 


The  Iliad  23 

These,  then,  are  the  dream  references  in  the  Iliad  of  sig- 
nificance for  a  study  of  the  use  of  the  dream  as  a  literary  device.** 

belongs  to  the  original  'Homer'.  Personally  I  believe  that  these  verses 
are  late.  For,  however  much  the  more  primitive  conception  may  appear 
in  later  literature  as  an  artistic  convention  or  affectation,  it  is  certain  that 
the  belief  in  a  psychological  dream-state  could  not  have  been  found  in 
the  earliest  form  of  the  Homeric  epic.     See  also  notes  7  and  18. 

68In  24,  682  ff.,  Hermes  appears  to  Priam  while  the  latter  is  slumbering 
and  'stands  above  his  head'  (682),  an  echo  of  the  formula  used  of  the  dream 
(cf.  n.  22).  The  boundary  line  between  dreams  and  visions  is  nowhere 
drawn  with  that  definiteness  which  would  make  dogmatic  statement  pos- 
sible. But  I  consider  this  a  waking  vision,  not  a  true  dream.  Hermes' 
coming  seems  to  wake  Priam,  for  in  the  lines  which  follow  (689-^91), 
Hermes  is  there  in  physical  presence  before  their  waking  eyes  to  yoke 
the  mules  and  drive  them  through  the  camp.  This  then  is  a  waking  visita- 
tion of  the  god.  I  have  excluded  such  from  comment  in  accord  with  the 
aim  of  this  study.     Cf.  n.  22. 


THE  ODYSSEY 

In  the  later  poem,  the  Odyssey,  the  treatment  of  the  dream  in 
some  respects  follows  the  same  lines  as  in  the  Iliad.  In  other 
respects,  however,  there  are  evident  advances.  The  longer 
passages  to  be  taken  into  consideration  are  4,  787-841 ;  6,  13-51 ; 
19,  509-581.  Of  less  import  are  20,  61-90,  and  the  still  shorter 
references,  11,  207,  222;    U,  495f^    19,  581;   21,  79 ;^o   24,  12. 

Odyssey,  4,  787-841 

The  first  dream  described  in  the  Odyssey  appears  to  Penelope^^ 
after  the  departure  of  Telemachus  to  consult  with  Nestor. 
Athene  fashioned  a  phantom,  in  form  like  Iphthime,  sister  of 
Penelope,  and  sent  it  to  cheer  the  wife  of  Odysseus.  The 
phantom  of  Iphthime,  entering  the  chamber,  carries  on  a  long 
dialogue  with  the  sleeping  queen.  It  bids  her  to  be  of  good 
courage  in  regard  to  her  absent  son,  but  refuses  to  tell  her  aught 
of  Odysseus. 

In  some  features  this  dream  is  identical  in  character  with  the 
naive  dreams  of  the  Iliod?'^  It  comes  from  without  the  dreamer ; 
it  is  objective  and  personal,  sent  by  a  divinity.  But  there  are 
differences  in  detail,  with  obvious  changes,  additions,  improve- 
ments, refinements,  showing  a  more  mature  art,  and  conscious 
reflection.  Here  the  sender  is  the  gleaming-eyed  Athene'* 
(795),  who  takes  upon  herself  in  the  Odyssey  the  dramatic  func- 
tion performed  in  the  Iliad  by  Zeus.  For  as  Zeus  is  the  active 
divinity  in  the  Iliad,  so  Pallas  Athene  is  the  chief  agent  in  the 

^^This  line,  14,  495  (cf.  supra,  2),  has,  from  the  time  of  Aristarchus  on, 
generally  been  regarded  as  an  interpolation  from  Iliad,  2,  56. 

'021,  79  is  identical  with  line  19,  581. 

"^Od.  4,  787-841. 

"Compare  with  Iliad,  2,  1-47;   10,  496-497;   23,62-107  (supra,  2-20). 

''In  one  passage  in  the  Iliad,  10,  496-497,  she  is  the  responsible  divinity 
who  sends  the  evil  dream  (supra,  11,  n.  35). 

24 


The  Odyssey  25 

restoration  of  the  hero  of  the  Odyssey.  That  which  is  sent  is  a 
phantom  (s'tBwXov,  796),  which  the  goddess  had  fashioned  in  the 
likeness  of  Penelope's  sister,  as  in  Iliad,  2,  1  ff.  the  dream  had 
taken  upon  itself  the  form  of  Nestor.^^  This  phantom,  Iph- 
thime,  is  sent  from  afar  (798;  811);  she  comes  in  the  dead  of 
night  (841)  f^  her  entrance  and  her  exit  are  minutely  described; 
she  enters  by  the  strap  of  the  bolt  (802),  and  leaves  by  the  bolt 
that  fitted  into  the  doorpost  (838)  f^  she  'stands  above  the  head' 
(803)"  of  Penelope  as  she  'sweetly  slvimbered  at  the  gates  of 
dreams'  (809) .  Like  the  baneful  dream  of  Iliad  2,  the  phantom 
names  the  divinity  who  sent  her  (828-829).  She  comes  to 
impart  one  bit  of  encouragement  and  refuses  to  divulge  any- 
thing else,  in  spite  of  Penelope's  requests:  xax6v  h'  dvs^wXta 
Pdc?;stv,  says  she  (837). 

The  dream,  as  in  the  earlier  work,  appears  at  a  time  of 
crisis,^^  at  one  of  the  dramatic  turning-points  of  the  poem,  the 
departure  of  Telemachus  to  visit  Menelaus,  the  so-called 
secondary  plot  of  the  action  of  this  epic.  Its  influence  upon  the 
economy  of  the  narrative  is  implied  rather  than  openly  or 
definitely  stated  by  the  poet.  Penelope  had  despaired  of  the 
life  of  her  son,  exposed  as  he  was  to  the  wrath  of  the  suitors,  and 
had  become  fainthearted  about  the  return  of  Odysseus.  Though 
the  e'tSwXov  refuses  to  tell  Penelope  whether  Odysseus  is  alive  or 
dead  (831-837),  its  words  of  comfort  about  the  journey  of  Tele- 
machus suggest  an  affirmative  answer  to  the  queen's  query. 
The  strengthening  of    this    hope   fortifies    her   resolution   to 

74The  fact  that  this  passage  is  an  imitation  of  Iliad,  2,  1  ff.,  Hey,  12,  has 
demonstrated  (supra,  2). 

751  follow  the  usual  interpretation,  which  explains  &no\y6s  as  an  old 
word  for  dK/j."^. 

7«This  description  is  drawn  with  'Homeric'  simpHcity  and  attention  to 
detail.  It  shows,  however,  an  amount  of  detail  which  is  foreign  to  any 
description  of  a  dream  in  the  earlier  work. 

"Cf.  Iliad,  2,  20;  59  (supra,  6);  10,  496  (supra,  10);  23,  68  (supra,  14); 
and  supra,  n.  22. 

"Cf. /Wad,  2, 1-47;   10,496-497;  23,62-107.    See  supra,  8, 11, 20. 


26         The  Dream  in  Homer  and  Greek  Tragedy 

await  further  her  wandering  hero's  return  and  to  withstand  the 
importunities  of  the  suitors.  The  continued  opposition  of  the 
queen  to  their  assaults  upon  her  fideHty  is  necessary  to  the  story. 
Courage  in  resistance,  while  not  visibly  affecting  the  plot,  is  none 
the  less  essential  to  its  being.  This  courage  the  dream  secures; 
for  that  it  is  important  to  the  economy  of  the  poem.  Such  a 
method  of  motivation  is  less  direct  than  that  of  the  dream  in  the 
second  book  of  the  Iliad  and  less  direct  than  much  that  is  found 
later.^^  But  in  proportion  to  its  lack  of  directness  it  gains  in 
artistic  refinement.  It  shows  a  technique  that  indicates 
familiarity  with  the  medium  in  which  the  poet  is  working  and  a 
correspondingly  increased  skill  in  execution.  It  indicates  a 
sophistication  such  as  one  might  expect  in  a  later  poem. 
/The  structure  of  this  dream  when  compared  with  that  of  the 
dreams  of  the  earlier  work  is  seen  to  be  very  complex.  It  is 
what  we  may  call  a  dialogue  dream.  The  germ  of  this  type  of 
dream  is  found  in  Iliad,  23,  62-107;/ the  ghost  of  Patroclus 
speaks  once  and  Achilles  replies  once  before  it  vanishes.  But  in 
the  passage  in  the  Odyssey  the  poet  has  accepted  this  model  and 
has  expanded  it  into  a  dialogue  of  considerable  proportions,  in 
which  the  phantom  speaks  three  times  and  Penelope  twice 
addresses  it  in  turn  and  questions  it.  This  expansion  into  a 
longer  dialogue  inevitably  introduces  further  refinements  in 
technique.  In  Iliad  2,  for  example,  Zeus  gave  to  the  baleful 
dream  a  definite  message  for  it  to  deliver  in  the  exact  words  of 
the  sender  (10) : 

xavTa  (xdV  axpsxeax;  (^yopsuijjisv  (bq  ixtTsXXo), 

says  he.     A  comparison  of  the  words  which  the  dream  spoke 
(28-32)  with  the  phrases  of  the  original  injunction  (11-15) 

■^^There  is  later,  in  many  cases,  an  assumption  of  simplicity  which  is 
just  as  artistic  and  quite  as  artificial  as  a  natural  sophistication.  For 
more  direct  motivation  in  later  works  of  the  classical  period,  see  my 
discussions  of  Aeschylus,  Pers.  (infra,  60-66),  Prom.  Vine,  (infra,  66-70), 
Eumenides  (infra,  74-77),  Euripides,  Hec.  (infra,  85-90),  Iph.  Taur. 
(infra,  91-96). 


The  Odyssey  27 

indicates  how  literally  the  dream  carried  out  the  wish  of  Zeus. 
In  the  present  passage  in  the  Odyssey  the  amoebaean  form 
which  the  poet  gives  to  his  description  of  the  dream  confines  the 
charge  of  Athene  to  general  terms.  The  orders  are  not  given  in 
the  original  words  of  Athene,  but  are  reported  briefly,  sketched 
only  in  the  vaguest  outline  (800-801) : 

rioq  nTQV£X6'7ueiav  68jpo[JLiviQV,  Yo6(i)aav, 
•jca6jsis  xXau8(jLOio  ^6016  ts  8axpu6evTO(;. 

If  Athene  had  demanded  of  the  dream  that  it  should  carry  a 
verbatim  message  to  Penelope,  a  dialogue  would  have  been 
either  impossible,  or  else  so  mechanical  as  to  preclude  any 
impression  of  epic  verisimilitude.  Here  the  spontaneity  of  the 
dialogue  is  preserved  by  controlling  the  form  of  the  goddess' 
communication.  The  dramatic  force  of  the  incident  is  greatly 
enhanced  by  this  innovation.  In  Iliad  2,  one  knows  in  advance 
what  the  dream  will  say;  but  here  the  treatment  is  more  subtle. 
There  is  effectively  introduced  the  element  of  suspense.  What 
form  will  the  words  of  comfort  take?  What  news  of  importance 
to  the  story  will  the  dream  impart  ?  Will  it  refer  only  to  the 
departure  of  Telemachus,  or  will  it  announce  that  Odysseus  is 
alive  and  on  his  homeward  journey?  The  answers  to  these 
questions  the  reader  does  not  know  until  the  dialogue  is  ended; 
there  is  no  anticipatory  address  to  Iphthime,  as  there  is  to 
"Ov£tpo<;.^^  The  word  for  word  repetition  of  J/tfl^  2,  essential  in 
the  ballad,  but  an  accident  in  the  epic  and  not  of  its  essence,  is 
omitted  in  this  later,  more  studied  example  of  the  employment 
of  the  dream. 

Another  innovation  is  to  be  noticed  in  the  change  in  the  sex 
of  the  recipient  of  the  dream.  Athene  sends  her  phantom  in 
sleep  to  a  woman,  whereas  the  visions  of  the  Iliad  come  to 
males.  81  Granted  that  the  greater  r61e  played  by  the  female 
personae  in  the  Odyssey  helps  this  change  in  convention,  still 

80That  is  in  Iliad,  2,  11-15,  referred  to  above,  26. 

8IT0  Agamemnon  in  Iliad,  2, 1-47;  to  Rhesus  in  10, 496-497;  to  Achilles 
in  23,  62-107. 


28  The  Dream  in  Homer  and  Greek  Tragedy 

that  one  factor  alone  is  not  serious  enough  wholly  to  condition 
the  change.  Odysseus  is  quite  as  much  the  hero  as  Penelope  is 
the  heroine  of  the  tale,  and  there  are  evident  in  it  no  natural 
difficulties  to  prevent  the  poet  from  sending  dreams  to  his  hero. 
He  does  indeed  send  numerous  waking  visions  to  his  male 
characters  throughout  this  epic.^^  The  Iliad  is  a  saga  of  males. 
The  female  figures,  Helen,  Briseis,  Chryseis,  are  assumed  as  a 
necessary  part  of  the  story,  form  a  background  for  the  action 
of  the  heroes,  but  never  play  more  than  a  passive  role.  To  send 
dreams,  therefore,  to  the  male  heroes  is  natural  and  largely  de- 
pendent upon  the  conditions  imposed  by  the  narrative.  But  no 
condition  such  as  would  demand  a  different  convention  controls 
the  practice  in  the  Odyssey.  The  poet's  preference  for  sending 
dreams  to  his  heroines  rather  than  to  his  heroes  would  seem  to 
be  the  result,  then,  of  deliberate  design.  There  are  no  data  for 
determining  whether  this  change  was  original  with  the  poet  or 
for  deciding  what  factors  influenced  him  in  his  choice.  Though 
later  epic  poets  did  not  see  fit  to  follow  him,  the  tragic  poets,  at 
any  rate,  found  his  practice  congenial  and  sent  dreams  to 
women.  ^ 

Odyssey,  6,  13-51 

In  Odyssey,  6,  13-51  is  the  story  of  Nausicaa's  dream,  in 
which  she  is  directed  to  go  to  the  shore,  ostensibly  to  wash  her 
shining  raiment,  but  actually  so  that  she  may  aid  the  ship- 

82Athene,  for  example,  appears  in  a  waking  vision  to  Odysseus,  1,  118  ff. ; 
to  Telemachus,  taking  on  the  likeness  of  Mentor,  2,  399  ff . ;  in  the  guise 
of  a  youthful  shepherd,  to  Odysseus,  13,  221  ff.;  in  the  form  of  a  woman 
fair  and  tall,  to  Odysseus,  16,  155  ff. 

^In  the  tragedy  of  the  classical  period  there  is  just  one  exception  to  this 
convention.  In  the  plays  which  portray  dreams,  Aeschylus,  Persae, 
Choephori,  Eumenides,  Sophocles,  Electra,  Euripides,  Hecuba,  Iphigenia 
Taurica,  the  woman  is  the  recipient  of  the  dream.  As  in  the  realm  of  the 
supernatural  the  oracle  is  regularly  sent  to  the  man,  so  the  dream  is  sent 
to  the  woman.  The  one  exception  in  regard  to  the  dream  is  found  in 
the  Rhesus,  780-788.  There  the  poet,  following  the  story  of  the  Iliad, 
reverts  to  the  convention  of  that  earlier  work.  See  infra,  65,  n.  252, 
for  further  comment  upon  this  feature. 


The  Odyssey  29 

wrecked  Odysseus.  Athene  is  again  the  active  divinity,  as  in 
4,  787-841 ;  but  instead  of  sending  a  phantom,  as  she  did  before, 
she  comes  in  person  (15) .  Note  how  much  in  the  description — 
in  accord  with  the  universal  tendency  of  the  epic  to  use  formulae 
— has  become  stereotyped  even  thus  early.  The  goddess 
comes  quickly,  even  *as  a  breath  of  wind'  (20);^'^  she  enters 
though  the  doors  are  shut  (19)  f^  she  stands  above  the  head  of 
Nausicaa  (21)  f^  she  likens  herself  to  the  daughter  of  Dymas,  a 
friend  of  equal  age  with  Nausicaa,  dear  to  her  heart  (22-23),  as 
Iphthime  was  to  Penelope  ;^^  she  directs  Nausicaa  what  she  is 
to  do  (31  ff.).88 

The  experiences  of  the  dream  are  here,  as  before,  looked  upon 
as  real  occurrences,  which  are  as  actual  to  the  mind  of  the  prin- 
cess as  her  waking  visions.  There  is  no  suggestion  of  a  dream 
state.  In  this  respect  the  dream  is  cut  on  the  usual  pattern  of 
the  dream  in  the  Homeric  poems.  It  is  non-allegorical ;  it  gives 
its  commands  in  a  straightforward  manner  without  need  of 
interpretation.  The  goddess  appears  to  a  woman  ;®^  in  this 
matter  the  poet  employs  again  the  innovation  noticed  in  the 
preceding  dream.  But  outside  of  that  feature  this  dream  is 
closely  akin  to  the  primitive  vision  of  Iliad  2. 

The  place  of  introduction  of  the  dream  is  again  a  crisis,  a 
pivotal  point  in  the  story.  For  from  this  incident  the  lot  of 
Odysseus  changes,  his  ill-luck  seems  at  last  to  end.  The  value 
of  tlie  dream,  in  this  passage,  ior  the  economy  of  the  plot  is 
explicit  and  direct.  It  is  in  pursuance  of  the  dream's  mandate 
that  Nausicaa  goes  to  wash  her  raiment  and  so  meets  Odysseus 
on  the  shore.  From  that  encounter  all  his  blessings  flow.  This 
meeting  introduces  the  whole  Phaeacian  episode.     Nausicaa 

8*Compare  Iliad,  2,  17,  and  supra,  6,  n.  21. 
ssCompare  Od.  4,  802;   838. 
8**Compare  supra,  6,  n.  2?^. 

*^For  other  dream  disguises  of  the  early  epic,  cf.  Iliad,  2,  21;  10,  496; 
Od.  4,  787  ff . 

"Cf.  Iliad,  2,  28. 

"Od.  4,  787-841;  supra,  27,  n.  81 ;  infra,  65. 


30         The  Dream  in  Homer  and  Greek  Tragedy 

guides  Odysseus  to  her  father's  court,  where  he  makes  himself 
known  to  the  king.  Alcinous  feasts  him  and  draws  from  him, 
on  two  successive  nights,  ^^  the  story  of  his  ten  years  of  adventure 
since  the  fall  of  Troy,  a  narrative  which  Homer,  true  to  the 
principle  which  Horace  later  formulated  for  him,^^  had  previously 
omitted.  He  finds  favor  in  the  king's  eyes  and  is  escorted  on 
the  magic  ship,  the  speed  of  which  excelled  the  hawk's,  back  to 
long-sought  Ithaca,  ^2  where  in  one  short  week  the  story  hastens 
to  its  close.  For  importance  to  the  development  of  the  plot 
this  dream  stands  second  to  the  pernicious  dream  of  Iliad  2.*^ 

Odyssey,  19,  509-581 

The  third  dream  of  importance  in  the  Odyssey  is  entirely 
different  in  content  and  form  from  every  other  dream  of  the 
early  epic.  It  is  Penelope's  dream  of  the  geese  and  the  eagle, 
which  she  tells  to  the  still  unrecognized  Odysseus.  It  is  a  dream 
in  which  appear  animate  objects,  but  no  persons.®*  It  is  an 
allegorical  _dream,  a  3ream  that  demands  Budget  at  the  same 
time  contains  its  own  interpretation.  An  eagle  came  from  the 
mountain  and  killed  Penelope's  twenty  geese;  as  she  lamented 
the  loss,  a  second  time  it  came,  and,  perching  upon  a  rafter, 
proclaimed  itself  Odysseus.     It  then  explained  the  first  or 

90The  story  of  his  wanderings,  which  he  tells  to  Alcinous,  comprises 
books  7-12. 

*^Epp.  2,  3,  148-149: 

semper  ad  eventum  f  estinat  et  in  medias  res 
non  secus  ac  notas  auditorem  rapit     .     .    . 

'^The  story  of  his  return  is  told  in  Od.  13. 

^^Od.  15,  1-43,  the  appearance  of  Athene  to  Telemachus,  is  quite  indubi- 
tably a  waking  vision.  It  lacks  entirely  the  elaborate  framework  which 
we  have  found  in  the  dreams.  Furthermore  the  poet  is  explicit  (7): 
tii\4fiaxop  5'  oix  Ctvos  Hx^  y\vKi6s     .     .     . 

**I  have  summarized  the  forms  in  which  the  Homeric  dream  appears, 
infra,  51-52.    See  the  footnotes  to  those  pages. 


The  Odyssey  31 

(^Uegorical  part  of  the  dream:  the  geese  were  the  suitors,  the 
^agle  Odysseus,  arrived  to  bring  doom  upon  his  false  friends. 
IjThis  interpretation,  included  within  the  dream  itself,  Odysseus 
(will  not  disturb  (555-557) : 

w  yuvat,  ou  x(j)?  e<TTtv  ixoxptvaaOoct  Svstpov 
aXX'fi  c«xox.X(vavT*,  ixei  i]  pd  TOt  aMq  'OBuaaeu^ 
']u^c[)paB*  oxcix;  TsXsst.^^ 


"but  Penelope  is  not  yet  satisfied  that  the  dream  is  sure  of  fulfil- 
ment. Not  all  dreams  come  to  pass  for  mortals.  For  there  are 
two  gates  of  fleeting  dreams,  one  of  horn,  through  which  pass 
visions  that  bring  true  messages  for  men,  the  other  of  ivory, 
which  gives  egress  to  deceitful  dreams. ^^ 

From  the  standpoint  of  its  relation  to  the  plot  this  dream 
forms  the  prelude  to  the  last  great  act  of  the  Odyssey,  appearing 
immediately  before  the  trial  of  the  bow,  the  slaughter  of  the 
suitors,  and  the  restoration  of  the  long-wandering  hero  to  his 
home.  It  cannot,  however,  be  rated  with  Iliad  2,  1  ff .  or  Odys- 
sey, 6,  13-51^^  for  its  influence  upon  the  plot,  for  the  assistance 
it  gives  in  advancing  the  action.  Penelope  has  already  deter- 
mined to  abide  the  trial  of  the  axes  and  to  follow  the  lot  of  the 
successful  contestant. ^*  The  dream  does  not  affect  this  decision. 
The  most  that  it  does  for  the  actors  of  the  poem  is  to  give  them 

'^This  passage,  conveying  one  meaning  to  Penelope  and  another  quite 
different  to  the  audience,  is  an  early  example  of  that  tragic  irony  which 
finds  its  grandest  example  in  the  Oedipus  Tyrannus  of  Sophocles. 

''^For  the  many  echoes  and  imitations  of  this  description  of  the  gates  of 
dreams  (quoted  below,  35),  compare  infra,  44-46,  and  the  footnotes  there. 

97Supra,  2-9;  28-30. 

"Penelope  expresses  her  fear  that  the  dream  may  be  deceitful,  in  spite 
of  the  confident  interpretation  of  the  stranger  (Odysseus),  and  tells  him 
of  the  contest  which  she  has  determined  upon  for  the  following  day, 
a  contest  in  which  she  herself  is  to  be  the  prize  for  the  successful  suitor, 
570-581. 


32         The  Dream  in  Homer  and  Greek  Tragedy 

hope  in  varying  degrees.  Odysseus  is  sure  that  the  suitors  will 
perish  at  his  hand  (557-558).  Penelope,  who  would  gladly, 
take  comfort  from  the  dream,  can  only  wistfully  express  her 
hope  that  it  came  not  through  the  gate  of  ivory  (568-569). 

The  encouragement  given  by  the  vision  steadies  and  strength- 
ens the  action,  but  does  not  originate  it  or  control  it  as  the 
dreams  cited  above  controlled  the  action.  ^^  But  the  effect  at 
this  crisis  on  the  mind  of  the  reader  is  impelling.  As  a  part  of 
the  elaborate  epic  properties  with  which  the  stage  is  set  for  the 
great  scene  of  the  last  act,  it  strikes  the  keynote  of  what  that 
scene  shall  be.  It  prepares  for  the  quick  ending  of  the  ten^ 
years'  wandering  and  suffering  of  Odysseus  and  for  the  quick 
coming  of  the  reward  for  his  faithful  wife.  It  gives  an  atmos- 
phere of  swift  decision  and  rapid  disaster  and  restitution.  And 
so,  though  the  role  which  the  dream  plays  in  the  structure  of  the 
plot  is  small,  it  does  not  follow  that  the  epic  writer  was  toying 
with  his  device,  or  adding  it  as  a  mere  prettiness.  That  degra- 
dation of  the  dream  device  was  left  to  Euripides, ^^^  the  earliest 
of  the  Alexandrians.^^^  Here  the  part  the  dream  plays  is  still 
impressive  and  significant  for  what  it  adds  of  the  intangible  in 
tone  and  color,  suggesting  an  impending  crisis  and  hinting 
broadly  at  the  solution  of  the  story,  though  not  actually  guiding 
the  catastrophe. 

The  nature  and  the  number  of  epithets  applied  to  dreams  in 
these  lines  are  worthy  of  note:  dreams  are  aiAYj/avoi,  'inexplica- 
ble', ixpiTojjLuGot,  'hard  of  interpretation'  (560),  a[jL£VY)vo{, 
'fleeting',  'unreal',  'unsubstantial'  (562),  an  adjective  in  these 
early  epics  regularly  used  of  ghosts  or  of  the  disembodied  spirits 

^Uliad,  2,  1-47;   Od.  6,  13-15. 

looj  refer  here  to  the  dream  in  the  Rhesus,  780-788.  For  the  discussion 
of  the  mean  r61e  it  plays,  see  below,  98-100. 

i°^Euripides  as  the  precursor  of  Alexandrianism  is  a  commonplace  of  the 
handbooks.     Cf.  especially,  Couat,  vi,  and  59. 


The  Odyssey  33 

of  the  dead;^^2  they  deceive,  iX£(j)acpovTat/°^  and  bring  words 
which  are  unfulfilled,  exe'  dxpdavTa  ^i^ovzeq  (565),  or,  on  the  other 
hand, they  bring  things  to  pass  in  reality:  qX  p*  sTu^xa  xpaCvouat 
(567).  The  writer  has  gone  far  from  the  o5Xo<;  "Ovetpoq  ^^  of 
the  earlier  work. 

The  most  remarkable  difference,  however,  is  the  changed 

conception  of  the  dream.     The  first  portion  of  it  is  allegorical : 

dXk*  aye  [xot  t6v  oveipov  ux6xptvai  xai  axou(7ov(535).      It  requires 

nterpretation.     This  is  a  new    departure  for  the  epic  and  a 

nodel  for  the   allegorical   dreams  of    tragedy.^°^    To  be  sure 

i°2This  connotation  emphasizes  the  partial  dependence  of  the  eschatology 
of  all  peoples  upon  dream  experiences;  see  the  discussion  and  bibliography 
in  note  40,  above,   and    add  the  following  references  for  comment  on 
additional  features:      Frazer,  Belief  in  Immortality,   1,   27  ff.;  136;  139; 
141;  193;  321;    Golden  Bough,    Index,  s.  v.  Dreams;  Hardie,  Lectures^ 
91  ff.;  Granger,  33;  42;   Tylor,  1,  430;   440  ff.     The  close  relationship 
between  the  descriptions  of  the  dream  and  of  the  ghost,  in  similarity  of 
action,  of  imagery,  and  of  vocabulary,  in  Greek  or  Roman  epic,  appears  in 
the  following  passages:  Iliad,  23,  72;   97-98;   100;    104;   Od.  4,  824;  835 
11,  83;  206-207;  211-213;  222;  476;  20,  355;  Aeneid,  1,  353;  2,  772;  773 
793;  4,   353;  554-572;  5,  636;   736;    6,   390;   480;  894;   10,  519;    636 
641-642. 

^^^ Iliad,  1,  63  and  5,  149-150  admit  inferentially  that  dreams  may  need 
interpretation,  that  is,  may  be  allegorical  and  capable  of  misconstruc- 
tions, unless  we  reject,  with  Hey,  11  (see  above,  n.  24),  the  equation 
dvetpoTrdXoj  =  *  interpreter  of  dreams'.  If  dvetpoirbXoi  were  used  in  the 
passage  in  the  text,  it  would  certainly  mean  'interpreter  of  dreams',  as 
it  surely  does  in  Herodotus,  5,  56  and  probably  in  1,  128  also.  Of.  also 
Buchholz,  2,  33  ff.,  the  chapter  entitled,  Die  Seher. 

^o^Iliad,  2,  1-47  (supra,  2-9).  Hey,  16,  insists  that  the  nature  and  the 
number  of  epithets  support  the  theory  of  a  later  interpolation. 

lo^The  allegorical  dream  is  the  usual  form  of  the  dream  in  tragedy; 
it  is  more  congenial  to  the  nature  of  that  literary  genre,  as  indicated  mfra, 
56-59.  The  allegorical  dreams  in  classical  Greek  tragedy  are:  Aeschylus. 
Pers.,  infra,  64;  Prom.  Vine,  infra,  69;  Choe.,  infra,71;  Sophocles, £/ecfra, 
infra,  84;  Euripides,  Iph.  Taur.,  infra,  91  ff.;  Rhesus,  infra,  97.  The 
non-allegorical  dreams  are  in  the  Eumenides,  infra,  77;  and  in  the  Hecuba, 
that  part  of  the  queen's  dreams  which  has  to  do  with  Polyxena:  that 
which  is  concerned  with  Polydorus  is  portrayed  as  external  in  origin; 
infra,  90. 


34  The  Dream  in  Homer  and  Greek  Tragedy 

there  is  one  hint,  possibly  two,  in  the  earlier  work,  of  a 
knowledge  of  the  nature  of  the  dream,  that  the  vision  may  exist 
only  in  the  mind  of  the  dreamer  and  correspond  to  no  external 
objective  thing.  These  are  the  assvimptions  of  Iliad,  22,  199- 
200,^^^  and  also  of  the  reference  to  6v£ipox6Xo<;  in  Iliad,  1,  63 
and  5,149,  if  this  word  does  not  mean  rather  *one  to  whom 
dreams  come'.^^^  But  this  dream  of  Penelope  is  the  first  alle- 
gorical dream  in  extant  Greek  literature.  Dreams  which  pre- 
sumably demanded  interpretation  must,  from  the  physical 
nature  of  dreams,  have  been  frequent  in  the  everyday  life  of 
mankind  from  most  primitive  times.  Hence  it  is  difficult 
fully  to  realize  how  slow  and  halting  is  the  process  of  trans- 
ferring such  experiences  to  the  realms  of  literature.  One  has 
only  to  recall,  however,  the  resistance  which  the  different  de- 
partments of  modem  literature,  for  example  the  novel,  have 
offered  to  the  adoption  of  changes,  obvious  enough  after  their 
incorporation,  to  appreciate  fully  the  advance  which  the  account 
of  Penelope's  dream  marks.  When  the  mould  was  once  cast, 
other  poets  could  imitate  and  refine  the  technique. 

The  lack  of  familiarity  on  the  part  of  the  poet  with  his  new 
dream  form  leads  him  into  a  strange  contaminatio  in  this  passage. 
The  second  part  of  the  dream,  in  which  the  eagle  returned  and 
announced  itself  to  be  Odysseus  and  interpreted  the  first  or 
allegorical  part  of  the  dream,  shows  that  the  poet  felt  uneasy  in 
connection  with  a  vision  which  is  not  direct, — a  vision,  that  is, 
the  symbols  of  which  must  be  translated  if  its  meaning  is  really 
to  be  grasped.  And  so  the  poet  adds  a  second  part  in  the 
manner  of  the  older  type,  the  objective  dream,  which  was 
direct  and  told  its  own  story,  that  his  hearers  or  readers  might 
not  be  confused  by  the  novelty  which  he  had  introduced. 
Later  writers  handle  the  interpretation  of  the  allegorical  dream 

^''^Aristarchus  athetized  lines  199-201,  which  contain  the  offending 
conception,  and  some  modem  editors  have  followed  him.  Ameis-Hentze, 
Anhang,  ad  loc,  give  the  evidence  and  the  bibliography. 

lo^See  Rohde,  1,  37;  Nagelsbach,  Nachhom.  TheoL  172;  supra,  6,  n.  24, 
and  33.  n.  103. 


The  Odyssey  35 

with  the  greater  skill  which  comes  of  practice.  But  there  is 
much  charm  in  the  rough  pioneer  work  displayed  in  the  economy 
of  this  Homeric  dream  and  there  is  no  lack  of  artifice  and  polish 
in  its  details. 

Among    these    highly    sophisticated    details   is    Penelope's 
statement  about  the  two  gates  of  dreams  (562-567) : 

Botal  ydg  ts  -luuXat  djxsvYjvwv  ehh  dvetpwv' 

(xl  [kh  Y<^P  xepdceaat  TSTe^xaTai,  at  B'  ili^ayzC 

Twv  0?  (xev  X,*  eXOwjt  Btd:  xpiaToO  iki^ayzoq, 

oX  p'  iXs([)afpovTat,  ixs'  axpdavTa  ^epovxe?* 

0'^  Zk  Stds  ^saTwv  xspdtov  IXSoxjt  Gupal^e, 

oi;  p'  hu[L(X  xpalvoujt,  gpOTWv  ots  xev  Tt?  'tSiQTat. 

The  conscious  artifice  in  these  lines  is  shown  in  the  play^®^  upon 
the  similarity  of  sound  in  i\i^(xyi:i,  ^Xec[)atpovTcci,  and  xepaeaat, 
Ttpafvoujt  —  a  play  which  can  hardly  be  accidental.  The  epic 
masterpiece  is  always  the  product  of  an  advanced  art,  and  so 
this  intermixture  of  art  with  artlessness,  the  ingenious  with  the 
ingenuous,  the  embellished  with  the  unembellished,  does  not  of 
itself  argue  a  date  of  the  time  of  Hesiod,  or  later,  for  this  passage 
on  the  gates  of  dreams.^®^  To  be  sure,  the  predominant  note  in 
the  Homeric  dream,  as  the  discussion  hitherto  has  shown,  is, 
artistically,  the  rudimentary,  the  early,  the  primitive.  But  the 
acknowledgment  of  this  feature  does  not  exclude  the  recogni- 
tion of  the  presence  of  later,  less  rudimentary  elements.  A  com- 
bination of  the  old  and  the  new,  such  as  exists  in  the  descriptions 
of  the  dream  and  in  about  the  same  proportions,  can  be  illus- 
trated in  conjunction  with  a  survey  of  the  companion  and 
allied  conceptions,  sleep,  death,  the  land  of  dreams. 

^"^This  word-play  was  noticed  as  early  as  the  scholiast;  cf.  his  com- 
ment on  line  562. 

I'^'Hey,  15,  discussing  the  dream  from  the  philosophic  side,  excludes 
everything  from  the  'original'  Homer  which  does  not  conform  to  his  theory 
of  the  "exoteric"  dream.  He  says  of  the  word-play  under  discussion: 
"Solche  Wortspiel  verbricht  kein  homerischer  Dichter,  sondem  h6chstens 
ein  vemiinftelnder  Katalogiseur  hesiodischer  Schule". 


36         The  Dream  in  Homer  and  Greek  Tragedy 

In  the  portrayal  of  sleep,  for  example,  in  the  Iliad  and  the 
Odyssey,  we  find  the  same  duality  of  artistic  theory — the  naive 
picture  of  external,  objective  sleep,  existing  side  by  side  with 
descriptions  containing  such  adjectival  and  verbal  adjuncts  as 
seem  to  indicate  a  more  advanced  psychology  and  so  sound 
quite  natural  to  a  modem  ear.  What  proportion  of  this  objec- 
tivity is  a  survival  of  an  earlier  belief  and  what  proportion  can 
be  ascribed  to  conscious  artifice  there  is  no  means  of  determining. 
In  a  given  passage  sleep  may  be  at  the  same  time  a  personal 
deity  and  a  substance  that  can  be  poured  upon  mortals  by  that 
deity;  and  at  once  the  two  conceptions  may  be  linked  with 
such  verbs  for  'sleep'  as  suBw  or  dwTsw,  words  which  seem  to 
contain  essentially  the  modern  idea.  The  noun  for  'sleep'  is 
found  with  many  epithets  which  are  figurative  in  origin,  how- 
ever much  consciousness  of  the  figure  may  have  been  lost. 

Some  epithets  of  sleep  are  common  to  both  poems.  Thus, 
sleep  is  sweet,  yXuxu?,^^^  tjBu?,^"  yXuvLegoq;^^^  deep,  vt)Bu^O!;;^^^  it  is 
soft,  like  the  fresh-plowed  fallow,  or  the  grassy  meadow,  or  the 
unshorn  sheep,  piaXaxoc;  ;^^^  it  is  the  all-subduer,  the  all-tamer, 
xavBa^aTwp.^^^  In  the  Odyssey,  especially, — an  indication  per- 
haps of  a  later  technique — several  of  these  adjectives  show  a 
slightly  greater  tendency  to  become  stereotyped,  as  the  approxi- 
mate count  of  my  footnotes  shows. 

The  Iliad  further  calls  sleep  ambrosial,  d\x^g6<^ioq,^^^  an  epithet 
used  of  night  and  things  pertaining  to  the  gods,  their  hair,  their 
sandals,  their  anointing  oil;  like  wine,  it  is  sweet  to  the  mind, 
tJL£X(4)pwv;^^''  it  is  gentle  and  balmy,  like  a  warm  wind,  axifjtJLwv 
Y.(xl  Xtap6q;^^^  4^^^  ^^  "^^^  ^  brazen  sleep,  xcxXxzoq  uicvo*;.^^^ 

The  later  poet  adds  some  touches  of  his  own  to  the  picture. 
With  him  sleep  is  also,  on  occasion,  merciless,  cruel,  like  an 
Achilles,   a  Patroclus,  or  a  Zeus,   (j^i'^'kioq','^^^    it    is  pitiless, 

^^miad,  3  times;   Od.,  11  times.  "«2,  19. 

^^^Iliad,  once;   Od.,  5  times.  ^^"^2,  34. 

^^Uliad,  3  times;   Od.,  4  times.  "n4,  164. 

^^Uliad,  7  times;   Od.,  5  times.  "ni,  241. 

^^^Iliad,  twice;   Od.,  once.  120IO,  69. 
"6//iac;,  24,  5;   Orf.  9,  373. 


The  Odyssey 


37 


relentless,  like  the  sword  of  steel  or  the  day  of  death,  v7)Xt)?;*** 
it  relaxes  the  limbs,  Xufft^jLeXifjg/^z  as  does  love  in  Hesiod^^a  qj. 
Sappho/24  death  in  Euripides/^s  wine  in  the  Anthology, ^"^^  or  the 
Furies  in  the  Orphic  Hymn;'^^'^  it  has  its  gifts,  of  which  man  par- 
takes, uTuvou  Swpov  eXovTo  ;^^^  or  it  is  merely  boundless,  deep,  and 
honey-sweet,  ixeipwv,^^®  VY]ypeTo<;,^^^  tJ-sXtY^Brjc;.^^^ 

In  the  use  of  verbs  with  the  noun  for  sleep  as  subject  the 
variety  is  equally  great  in  the  two  epic  poems.  Each  shows  ap- 
proximately a  score^^^  of  different  verbs  so  used;  the  total 
number  of  occurrences  is  greater  in  the  Odyssey  in  proportion  as 
the  theme  of  sleep  plays  a  more  important  r61e.  In  the  Iliad 
sleep  comes,  Ixdvw/^^  sits  upon  the  eyelids,  ^([)ii;av(o,^^^  holds,  £xw»^*^ 
catches,  (jLapxTO),^^^  lays,  'keyoi,^^'^  seizes,  alpsw,^^^  overpowers, 
h(X[Ld'(,b),^^^  rushes  violently  at,  like  a  hound  that  rushes  upon  a 
wounded  fawn,  ixopouo);^^*^  or  it  lets  go,  av^Y)(JLi,^^^  frees  from 
anxiety,  Xdctiy  (jLsXsBYjjiaTa  6u^ou;^^^  it  perishes,  axoXXu^ii;"^  or  it 
is  pictured  as  a  liquid  and  is  poured  upon  mortals  as  Zeus  pours 
rain,  x£w.^^ 

Of  these  verbs  the  Odyssey  repeats  many :  l^w ,  ^^^  X£t*> » ^^^  (iv  (tq  ^i  t ,  '*^ 
Ixavw/^^  atpio)/'^  i%opo(i(^,^^n(X[L(iW^'-  txapxTto,^^'  X6g).^^^    It  shows 


12112,  372. 

1374,  131. 

12220,  57;   23,  343. 

1383  times. 

^Theog.  911. 

1393  times. 

i24Fr.  43. 

14023,  232. 

^^^Supp.  46. 

i«2,  34;   71. 

^^^Anth.  Pal.  11,  414. 

14223,  62. 

12769,  9. 

143 10,  186;   187  (intr.). 

i287Zmrf,7,482;  9,713; 

;  Od. 

16, 

1442,19;  23,62;   14,165;  24,445. 

481;    19,427. 

14515,  7. 

i290(/.  7,  286. 

1468  times. 

130OJ.  13,  80. 

1474  times. 

1310^.  19,  551. 

1489,333;   19,49. 

i32Approximately  16  and  18  for 

1499,373;   19,511;  20,52. 

Iliad  and  Odyssey  re 

jspectively. 

16023,  343. 

1331,610;   10,96. 

1517,  318;   13,  119;   15,  6. 

13*10,26;   91. 

16220,  56. 

1352,2;    10,4. 

16323,  342. 

i»823,62;  24,679. 

38         The  Dream  in  Homer  and  Greek  Tragedy 

a  particular  fondness,  as  a  glance  will  indicate,  for  ^Iw,  d^iri[Hy 
atpio),  ^(X[Ld'C,id,^^  and  in  the  case  of  the  others  it  often  imitates 
passages  from  the  earlier  poem.^^^  It  also  adds  several,  some 
colorless,  some  highly  figurative.  Sleep  is  used  with  the  wonted 
verb  of  motion,  sp^otxat  ;^^^  or  it  falls  upon  mortals,  x(xto),^^^  or  it 
speeds  away,  Ixaeuo^jiat;^^^  Athene  throws  it  upon  the  eyelids, 
PdXXw;^^^  it  joins  with  the  evil  companions  of  Odysseus  to 
infatuate  him,  aaaav  (Ji'  lTapo(  iz  xaxoi  izghq  to  tat  t£  utcvo?,^^*^  by  it 
are  men  sated,  dSsw,^^^  or  worn  out,  dpdw,^^^  or  caused  to  forget, 

After  a  survey  such  as  this  from  the  Index  Homericus  one  gets 
no  nearer,  perhaps,  to  the  poet's  explanation  of  the  psychic 
processes  of  sleep,  if  he  had  any  such  explanation.  Further- 
more, many  of  the  ideas  can  be  exactly  paralleled  in  modern 
poetry  in  the  works  of  authors  to  whom  the  scientific  phenomena 
of  sleep  are  no  closed  book.  It  is  not  a  question,  then,  of  the 
epic  poet's  psychological  or  philosophical  theories  as  to  the 
nature  of  sleep,  but  a  question  of  what  his  prevailing  artistic 
conception  was.  Viewing  the  Homeric  treatment  from  this 
latter  standpoint,  we  may  say  that  the  omiulative  evidence  of  so 
many  touches  leaves  an  undoubted  impression  of  sleep  as  some- 
thing external,  objective,  corporeal.  Whether  the  portrayal  is 
in  accord  with  the  writer's  scientific  belief,  or  is  only  his  poetic 
fancy,  sleep  nevertheless  appears  as  something  material, 
physical,  existing  outside  the  sleeper. 

When  one  has  accustomed  oneself  to  this  recurrent  and 
artistically  primitive  giving  of  substance  to  sleep,  one  is  pre- 
pared to  accept  without  surprise  the  detailed  pictures  of  sleep 
as  a  personality  and  a  god.  Hence,  in  spite  of  the  elusive 
dualism,  the  occasional  combination  of  a  primitive  psychology 

"^8,  4,  3,  3  times  respectively.  ^^n,  363;   16,  450. 

iB6Cf.  Iliad,  23,  62;  24,  679;  Od.  20,  i^oio,  68. 

56;   23,342;   etc.  i6il2,  281. 

1565  times.  ^^m,  2. 

1574  times.  i«320,  85. 
"812,  366. 


The  Odyssey  39 

with  intimations  of  a  more  enlightened  view  of  ^leep  and  dream 
experiences,  the  picture  of  Sleep  in  Iliad  14  and  16  does  not 
strike  one  with  that  high  degree  of  artificiality  and  unreality 
which  attends  the  personification  of  those  pale  abstractions 
which  we  find  so  freely  introduced  by  a  Silius  Italicus^^^  or  a 
Valerius  Flaccus.^^^  This  full-length  portrayal  of  Sleep  in  Iliad 
14  and  16  does  not  suggest,  in  the  same  way,  the  study  and  the 
lamp.  To  be  sure  the  naivete  of  Homeric  epic  is  an  artistic 
naivete.^^^  Yet  one  must  admit  that  the  picture  of  Sleep,  thus 
personified,  glides  into  the  mind  of  the  reader  here  without  any 
lack  of  verisimilitude.  Sleep  is  here  as  truly  a  god  as  Zeus  or 
Aphrodite,  if  on  a  lower  plane. 

In  Book  14,  225  ff.  Hera  speeds  to  Lemnos,  city  of  divine 
Thoas,  to  petition  "Yxvo^;  to  put  Zeus  to  sleep.  The  meeting 
and  the  conversation  are  most  natural  and  vivid.  No  divinity 
could  be  more  completely  equipt  with  all  the  attributes  of  per- 
sonality than  Hypnos  is  in  these  verses.  Hera  in  return  for  this 
favor  will  give  him  a  fair  golden  throne,  imperishable  forever, 
with  a  footstool  for  him  to  put  his  gleaming  feet  upon  (238-241). 
But  Sleep  is  cautious  of  granting  her  request.  His  previous  plot 
against  Zeus,  when  the  latter,  after  awakening,  tossed  the  gods 
in  anger  about  the  Olympian  mansion  and  forced  Hypnos  to  flee 
for  refuge  to  Nu$,  of  whom  even  Zeus  stood  in  awe,  had  fallen 
too  little  short  of  disaster.  So  Hera  is  forced  to  offer  him  one 
of  her  XaptT£<;,  an  offer  which  never  failed  to  win  assent  from 
male  divinity.  Hypnos  puts  her  to  a  solemn  oath,  invoking  all 
the  gods  by  name,  then  promises  to  do  her  bidding.     He  accom- 

i<^Cf.  2,  548-552;  4,89;  7,204;   10,345;  13,560;  and  passim. 

"6Cf.  1,  796;  8,  70.  The  personifications  of  Sleep,  Death,  and  similar 
conceptions  in  the  Latin  poets  are  of  a  purely  literary  character;  cf. 
the  passages  referred  to  under  the  words,  Somnus,  Mors  in  J.  B.  Carter, 
Epitheta  Deorum  (Leipzig,  1902). 

i«6We  must  remember  what  Professor  K.  F.  Smith  so  judiciously  says, 
Elegies  of  Tihullus,  page  68  (New  York,  1913):  "No  competent  critic 
in  these  days,  certainly  no  classical  scholar  worthy  of  the  name,  needs 
to  be  reminded  that  in  a  literary  masterpiece  simplicity  is  always  deliberate 
and  naivete  always  artistic". 


40  The  Dream  in  Homer  and  Greek  Tragedy 

panies  her  to  Mt.  Ida  and,  taking  on  the  Ukeness  of  a  bird,^^^ 
nestles  in  the  highest  tree  (286  ff.),  waiting  to  do  his  part.  At 
the  right  moment  he  puts  sleep  as  a  cloak  around  Zeus  (359), 
and  dashes  off  to  Poseidon  to  deliver  the  injunctions  of  Hera.  A 
short  passage  here,  352-360,  combines  all  the  different  concep- 
tions with  delightful  inconsistency — eSBs  xaTYjp  (352),  utcvco  .  .  . 
8a^£:q  (353),  {xaXaxov  luepl  y.C)[l  ixdXu^a,  the  material  in  the  hands 
of  Hypnos  (359) — without  detracting  in  the  slightest  degree 
from  the  personality  and  verisimilitude  of  Sleep. 

In  Iliad  16,  too,  we  find  a  personal  Hypnos  linked  with  a 
personal  Thanatos.  The  body  of  Sarpedon  is  given  to  the  *swift 
conveyors',  the  twins  Sleep  and  Death  (454;  681-682),  who 
carry  it  quickly  to  Lycia.^®^ 

Death  and  Sleep  are  joined  as  brothers  in  these  two  passages 
{Iliad,  16,  454,  and  682).  In  later  literature  the  idea  is  wide- 
spread. Hesiod,  who  elaborates  still  further  the  relationship 
between  Sleep  and  Death,  calls  them  children  of  Nu?.^®^  One  of 
the  scenes  on  the  chest  of  C)rpselus,  as  described  by  Pausanias,^'^'' 

i67Pqj-  ^  j^Qj-g  Qj^  dreams  and  the  comparison  of  them  to  bats,  etc.  see 
below,  43;  n.  l&l.  The  conception  of  sleep  as  winged  does  not  occur  until 
the  Alexandrian  period.  Callimachus,  Hymn  to  Apollo,  234,  supplies 
the  earliest  extant  reference  to  the  wings  of  Sleep.  This  may  be  a  develop- 
ment of  the  hint  given  in  this  Homeric  passage.  After  the  Alexandrian 
age  the  conception  is  frequently  met;  cf.  Tibullus,  2,  1,  89;  Nonnus  5, 
411;  31,  175  (ed.  Ludwich,  Leipzig,  1909);  Fronto,  De  Feriis  Alsiensihus, 
229  (ed.  Naber);  Claudius,  In  Rufinum,  2,  325  (ed.  J.  Koch,  Leipzig, 
1893). 

^''^Sleep  and  Death,  carrying  off  a  long-haired  hero,  either  Memnon  or 
Sarpedon,  have  been  portrayed  on  Greek  vases.  Cf.  for  the  illustration, 
Baumeister,  1,  727,  fig.  781;  and  for  the  discussion  and  literature,  2,  922; 
and  Preller-Robert,  1,  844-845. 

^^^Theog.  212;  756-759.  Sleep  is  child  of  Night  also  in  Euripides, 
Cyclops,  601;  Nonnus,  31,  117;  etc.  Dreams  are  the  children  of  Night  in 
Hesiod,  Theog.  212;  Euripides,  ^gc.  70;  Ovid,  Fasti,  4,  662;  and  they 
accompany  Sleep  in  Ovid,  Met.  11,  613  and  Statins,  Theh.  10,  112,  while 
Sleep  is  king  of  Lucian's  Isle  of  Dreams,  Ver.  Hist.  2,  32  ff. 

i^°Pausanias,  5,  18,  1;  cf.  Frazer,  Pausanias,  ad  loc.  and  on  2,  10,  2. 
Here  Sleep  is  represented  passively,  as  slumbering;  compare  the  citation 
below,  n.  181,  where  Sleep  is  active,  lulling  to  rest  a  lion. 


The  Odyssey  41 

represented  Sleep  and  Death  reposing  in  the  hands  of  Night. 
Sleep  was  clad  in  white  and  slumbered  in  the  right  hand  of 
Night;  Death  was  clad  in  black  and  sltimbered  in  her  left. 
Though  this  particular  composition  is  not  fully  paralleled  on  the 
extant  vases,  Sleep  and  Death  do  appear  together  on  the  vases. 
Attic  lekythoi  portray  them  so."^  Plutarch,  Cleoni.  9,"^  says 
that  there  was  in  Sparta  a  shrine  to  Death.  Sisyphus  tricked 
and  bound  Death,  a  theme  used  by  Aeschylus  for  a  satyr 
drama."^  Euripides  boldly  portrayed  Death  upon  the  stage, 
with  lowering  mien,  black  wings,  and  a  knife  with  which  to  cut 
from  the  dying  a  lock  of  hair.^^^  This  gloomy  conception  of 
Death  was  not,  however,  universal.  Where  the  similarity  of 
Death  to  Sleep  was  realized  on  its  beneficent  side  a  milder 
conception  of  Death  was  the  rule.  Thus  Sophocles^^^  called 
Death  a?£vuxvo(;;  in  the  fourth  century  he  was  conceived  as  a 
young  man,  until  finally  he  was  likened  to  an  Eros,  winged  or 
unwinged,  usually  sleeping.  Then  entered  the  euphemistic  use 
of  Sleep  for  his  brother  Death.^^^ 

But  let  us  return  to  the  matter  more  immediately  in  hand. 
This  very  live  and  vivid  picture  of  Sleep  and  the  portrayal  of  a 

^^^Cf.  Robert,  Taf.  2,  p.  20.  For  numerous  representations  of  Death 
on  Athenian  lekythoi,  cf.  Dumont  et  Chaplain,  Les  cSr antiques  de  la 
Grece  propre,  par.  1,  pi.  27-28  (Paris,  1888-1890);    Baumeister,  3,  1729. 

i72Cf.  also  Pausanias,  3,  18,  1.  See  Preller-Robert,  1,  843  for  bibli- 
ography. 

i^^See  Preller-Robert,  loc.  laud.,  footnote  5. 

^^^Alcestis,  25;  261;  843;  1140.  Robert,  34  ff.  discusses  this  portrayal 
at  length. 

^■^^Oed.  Col.  1578. 

i^^A  very  valuable  presentation  of  the  conception  of  Death  which  was  held 
by  the  Greeks  of  the  Classical  period  can  be  found  in  A.  de  Ridder,  De 
Videe  de  la  mort  en  Grece  cL  Vepoque  classique  (Paris,  1896).  See  also  A. 
Maury,  Du  personnage  de  la  mort  et  de  ses  representations  dans  VantiquitS 
(in  Rev.  Arch.  1847-1848);  Robert,  Thanatos.  Robert,  36  ff.,  finds  no 
popular  cult  of  Death  corresponding  to  the  plastic  and  pictorial  repre- 
sentations. 


42  The  Dream  in  Homer  and  Greek  Tragedy 

likewise  personal  Death  must  be  kept  in  mind  in  studying  the 
poet's  conception  of  the  dream,  because  of  the  close  inter- 
dependence of  these  three  conceptions.  For,  to  the  two 
brothers.  Sleep  and  Death,  Dream,  or  the  race  of  dreams,  was 
related.^^^  In  the  Hesiodic  passage  cited  above, ^^^  Night  was 
their  mother  as  she  was  of  Sleep  and  Death.  Euripides  calls 
them  black-winged  children  of  Earth  ;i^^  Sophocles^^^  makes 
Death  the  son  of  Earth.  Again,  the  statues  of  Sleep  and  Dream 
in  the  inner  chamber  of  the  enclosure  of  Asklepios  at  Sicyon^^^ 
repeat  the  family  connection  of  the  dream  with  Sleep  and  Death. 

Since,  then,  Homeric  epic  connected  the  dream  with  these 
predominantly  external  and  personal  daimons,  the  additional 
picture  of  a  country  and  dwelling-place  of  dreams,  hri\Loq 
dvetpwv,  was  a  natural  extension.  This  home  of  dreams  is 
situated  beyond  the  streams  of  Oceanus  and  the  White  Rock, 
beyond  the  gates  of  the  sun,  near  the  asphodel  mead  which  the 
shades  of  heroes  haunted,  Odyssey,  24,  11-14.  By  comparing 
this  passage  with  Odyssey,  11,  14,  we  see  that  the  region  is 
further  defined  as  the  land  of  the  Cimmerians. 

The  interest  which  these  descriptions  of  the  country  of  dreams 
aroused  is  shown  by  the  wide-spread  imitation  of  them.  Vergil 
follows  Homer^82  {^  speaking  of  a  home  of  dreams ;  he  places  the 
home  of  vain  dreams  primis  in  faucibus  Orel,  and  represents 

^"For  the  representation  of  the  family  relationships  supplied  by  art. 
see  note  174  above. 

^''^Theog.  212.     Cf.  n.  169. 

^''mec.  70-71.     Compare  this  passage  with  Iph.    Taur.    1262-1263. 

^^^Oed.  Col.  1574. 

^s^Pausanias,  2,  10,  2.  In  the  outer  chamber  of  the  sacred  enclosure  was 
the  head  of  a  statue  of  Sleep;  in  the  colonnade  a  statue  of  Sleep  and  a 
statue  of  Dream.  In  this  representation  Sleep  is  active,  putting  a  lion 
to  sleep;  cf.  G.  Kruger,  Hermes  und  Hypnos,  (in  Fleckeisens  Jahrhucher,  9, 
288-301) ,  and  other  bibliographical  references  in  Frazer's  Pausanias,  ad  loc. 

^^^It  must  always  be  remembered,  however,  that  the  Vergilian  Hades  is 
subterranean,  while  the  Homeric  Odysseus  does  not  find  the  shades  beneath 
the  earth  at  all. 


The  Odyssey  43 

such  dreams  as  clinging  beneath  all  the  leaves  of  a  huge  black 
elm  (Aeneid,  6,  273,  282-284).  The  source  of  this  dream-ehn  is 
undetermined.183  xhe  continual  likening  of  the  soul  to  the 
dream-image  suggests  that,  as  souls  are  compared  to  bats 
{Od.  24,  6  f.),  Vergil  is  here  transferring  to  the  companion  con- 
ception of  dreams  the  bat-Hke  habits  of  the  souls  of  the  suitors 
which  Hermes  was  conducting  to  the  mead  of  asphodel.i84 

Ovid,  Met.  11,  592-593,  places  his  home  of  Sleep  and  its 
creatures,  dreams,  near  the  Cimmerians : 

est  prope  Cimmerios  longo  spelunca  recessu, 
mons  cavus,  ignavi  domus  et  penetralia  Somni.^s^ 

Apuleius,  Met.  6,  21,  has  Psyche  bring  up  her  box  of  infernus 
somnus  ac  vere  Stygius  from  the  home  of  Proserpina.  Lucian, 
Vera  Hist.  2,  32,  has  an  island  of  dreams.  The  late  writer 
Nonnus,  31,  112,  speaks  of  ^axepto?  lo^oq  ''Txvou. 

These  are  literary,  artistic  extensions  of  what  their  authors 
found  in  their  predecessors,  with  no  relation  to  contemporaneous 

is'See  Hey,  17. 

^8*This  picture  of  the  dream-elm  in  the  entrance  of  Hades  contradicts 
the  later  passage,  6,  893  ff.,  in  the  opinion  of  Norden,  47  (he  quotes  in 
support  A.  Gercke,  Neue  Jahrbiicher  f.  d.  klass.  Alt.  1901,  110  f.).  Norden, 
216,  cites  parallels:  the  tree  of  the  Hesperides,  the  golden  apples  of 
which  Heracles  had  to  pick  before  he  could  receive  immortality,  a  myth 
of  chthonic  character,  in  which  the  Hesperides  were  originally  pictured 
as  birds;  Lucian,  Ver.  Hist.  2,  33,  the  Island  of  Dreams  with  the  wood  in 
which  the  bats  nested.  Souls,  which  by  a  process  of  idealizing  personifica- 
tion were  later  looked  upon  as  'winged',  were  originally  conceived  as  birds. 
Vergil,  who  here  evidently  pictures  dream-beings  under  the  form  of  soul- 
beings,  reverts  to  that  primitive  conception. 

^^The  whole  of  the  long  passage  should  be  read  in  this  connection.  A 
comparison  of  the  Hypnos  of  the  earlier  poet  with  the  Somnus  of  Ovid 
here,  or  the  pale  Somnus-Sopor  of  Silius  Italicus,  10,  340  ff.,  will  give  a 
clear  insight  into  the  difference  in  treatment  between  the  old  classic 
picture  of  Sleep  and  the  later  imitation.  In  the  O vidian  reference  an 
intermediate  Greek  source — 'Alexandrian'  shall  we  say? — seems  to  be 
indicated  by  the  Greek  names  of  three  of  the  thousand  sons  of  Somnus, 
Morpheus  (635),  Icelos-Phobetor  (640),  and  Phantasos  (642). 


44  The  Dream  in  Homer  and  Greek  Tragedy 

folk-beliefs  or  philosophical  theories.  Their  sources  are  entirely 
bookish.  When  one  gets  back  to  Homer,  however,  that  assump- 
tion cannot  be  so  confidently  made.  Homeric  epic  was  much 
nearer  the  soil  and  the  incorporation  therein  of  such  portrayals 
as  that  of  the  country  of  dreams  may  represent  current  folk- 
beliefs. 

To  the  country  of  dreams  gates  are  given  in  two  places  in  the 
Odyssey — in  4,  809,  where  the  phantom  Iphthime,  sent  by  the 
gleaming-eyed  Athene,  finds  Penelope  'very  sweetly  slumbering 
at  the  gates  of  dreams',  and  in  the  longer  passage,  19, 562-567.^^^ 
The  allusions  to  these  lines  and  the  imitations  of  them  are  numer- 
ous in  both  Greek  and  Latin  literatures:  Plato,  Charm.  173a: 
axous  Syj,  £(j)Y]v,  TO  i[Lby  ovap,  eiie  Bta  xspdcTwv  ekz  Bi'  IXec|)avTog  iXi]- 
XuOev;  Sophocles,  Elect.  645,  perhaps  (one  may  see  a  hint  of  it  in 
Biacjwv  6v£(po)v);  Anth.  Pal.  7,  42:1^7  ^  (xsya  BccTTtdSao  [i.  e.  Cal- 
limachus]  ao(t)ou  xsptxujTov  ovstap,  r]  p'  lTe6v  xspawv  ouB'  iXi^ayzoq 
£TQ<; ;  Horace,Carm.  3, 27, 41 :  luditimago  vana  quae  porta  fugiens 
ebuma  somnium  ducit ? ;  Propertius,  5, 7,  87 ;  Statius,  Silv.  5, 3, 
287;  Lucian,  Ver.  Hist.  2,32;  Somn.  6;  Macrobius,  Somn.  Scip. 
1,3,20;  Tertullian ,De  An.AQ]  Philostratus  (Maior) ,  Imagines , 
333,  1-3  (Benndorf  and  Schenkel,  Leipzig,  1893);  Babrius, 
Fabulae,  30,  8  (Schneidewin,  Leipzig,  1880);  Julian,  Epistolae, 
17  (Hertlein,  Leipzig,  1875);  Nonnus,  Dion.  34,  90;  44,  53; 
and  Coluthus,  Raptus  Helenae,  367  (Abel,  Berlin,  1880).  But 
the  most  famous  of  all  the  imitations  is  the  account  of  the  twin 

is^The  lines  are  quoted  in  full  above,  35. 

i^^For  a  discussion  of  this  poem  from  the  Anthology  and  the  light  which 
it  throws  upon  the  'Alexandrianism'  of  Ennius  see  Messer,  78-92.  This 
discussion,  indeed,  is,  in  addition  to  being  an  independent  study  in  the 
dream  technique  of  the  classical  Greek  period  and  to  that  extent  an  end  in 
itself,  a  preliminary  survey  of  the  pre- Alexandrian  elements.  My  final 
aim  is  to  sift  and  classify  the  elements — in  whatever  sphere  they  lie — 
which  went  into  the  make-up  of  the  description  of  dreams  in  Latin  litera- 
ture :  to  determine  which  of  these  elements  are  native,  which  Alexandrine, 
which  go  back  to  the  classical  Greek  period. 


The  Odyssey  45 

gates  of  Sleepiss  in  Vergil  {Aeneid,  6,  893-898), i8»  in  which  the 
Roman  poet  uses  the  old  conception  to  indicate  the  time  at 

i88]\jorden  says  on  line  893:  "'Tore  der  Traume'  {Somni  portae,  da 
oblique  Casus  von  somnium  unbrauchbar  waren,  vgl.  Conington)".  The 
editors  have  as  a  rule  followed  him.  There  is  no  inherent  impossibility 
in  such  an  interpretation:  the  poetical  singular  for  the  metrically  incon- 
venient plural  is  no  rare  phenomenon  (Norden's  typography,  however, 
is  not  in  accord  with  his  note;  for  he  capitalizes  the  initial  5  {Somni]^ 
which  is  surely  impossible  with  his  interpretation) .  Ribbeck  (bracketing 
the  whole  passage)  writes  Somni.  That  can  only  mean — if  referred  to 
somnium  at  all — the  personification  of  the  true  singular  of  ^omnium,  which 
is  inconsistent  with  all  the  other  passages  in  Vergil,  where  the  poet  regularly 
conceives  of  many  dreams,  not  one;  so,  e.g.  in  Aen.  6,  282-284,  the  dreams 
clustering  beneath  the  elm  are  legion ;  furthermore  umhris  (894)  and  insom- 
nia (896)  would  be  very  harsh  in  such  close  connection  with  Somni.  To 
consider  Somni  the  singular  of  the  personified  Somnus,  Sleep,  is  simpler 
and  open  to  no  serious  objection.  Vergil,  though  admittedly  writing 
under  the  influence  of  the  Homeric  tradition,  nowhere  held  himself  rigidly 
to  one  source  (on  the  philosophic  side,  for  example,  cf.  the  numerous 
sources  which  he  laid  under  contribution,  cited  by  Norden  in  his  introduc- 
tory excursus,  Die  Quellenfrage,  20  ff.).  Somnus  as  the  marshaler  of 
dreams,  in  Latin  as  in  Greek  literature,  is  a  familiar  figure.  Ovid,  Met.  11, 
585,  gives  the  most  elaborate  picture,  where  Somnus  is  the  father  of  a 
thousand  dreams.  The  conception  is  Vergilian  also:  in  Aen.  5,  835  ff., 
Somnus  comes  in  person  to  Palinurus  'bringing  dreams  of  bale',  somnia 
■  tristia  portans  (840).  The  passage  as  a  whole  (quoted  below,  footnote  189) 
has  been  the  subject  of  much  exegesis.  Ribbeck,  finding  it  inconsistent 
with  6,  282-284,  where  dreams  hang  bat-like  beneath  the  leaves  of  an  elm, 
secludes  893-896  (this  inconsistency  Ettig,  Acheruntica,  354,  4  [cited  by 
Hey,  16],  denies)  and  changes  eburna  to  Averna.  The  Heyne- Wagner 
excursus  xv  to  Book  6,  Norden's  notes  on  893-89G  and  his  Einleitung, 
47  f.,  and  Hey,  16,  give  the  important  literature  and  the  plausible  explana- 
tions. 

^^^Aeneid,  6,  893-898: 

Sunt  geminae  Somni  portae;    quarum  altera  fertur 
cornea,  qua  veris  facilis  datur  exitus  umbris; 
altera  candenti  perfecta  nitens  elephanto, 
sed  falsa  ad  caelum  mittunt  insomnia  manes. 
His  ubi  turn  natum  Anchises  unaque  Sibyllam 
prosequitur  dictis,  portaque  emittit  ebuma.    .     .    . 


46  The  Dream  in  Homer  and  Greek  Tragedy 

which  Aeneas  and  the  guiding  Sibyl  left  the  underworld,  i.  e. 
before  midnight. ^^° 

The  importance  of  all  these  to  our  study  of  the  Homeric 
dream  consists  in  the  general  acceptance  of  a  country  of  dreams 
with  a  definite  poetical  situation  and  poetico-physical  doors. 
By  their  imitations  other  poets  bear  witness  to  the  vivid  objec- 
tivity and  personality  with  which  Homer,  to  their  minds,  had 
portrayed  the  dream.  This  picture,  once  fastened  upon  poetry 
by  its  great  originator  (or  adapter),  maintained  its  commanding 
position  and  forced  its  conceptions  upon  poets  who  had  long 
outgrown  any  naive  belief  in  the  source  of  dreams. 

The  few  remaining  passages  in  the  Odyssey  in  which  the  dream 
is  mentioned  are  of  little  importance,  but  are  included  here  for 
completeness.  In  20,  61-90  Penelope  prays  to  Artemis  to  slay 
her.  She  complains  that  even  the  dreams  which  the  gods  send 
are  evil  (87) ,  for  that  very  night  one  like  to  Odysseus  seemed  to 
lie  by  her  side,  and  she  rejoiced,  thinking  it  not  a  dream,  ovap, 
but  a  real  vision,  uxap  (90).^^^  A  woman  here,  as  is  the  rule  in 
the  Odyssey,  beholds  the  vision,  but  what  specific  god  sends  the 
likeness  we  do  not  learn.  In  11,  207  Odysseus  likens  the  spirit 
(^ux*^)  oi  his  mother  to  a  shadow  (axtfj)^^^  or  even  a  dream 
(6ve(p({));    in  222  the  mother's  ghost  tells  him  that  the  human 

^^°Cf.  supra,  n.  38;  but  for  other  theories,  stretching  back  to  Macrobius, 
see  the  bibliography  referred  to  in  note  188,  and  add  Granger,  44. 

i^i^Trap,  derived  from  virb,  'what  is  beneath',  as  e.g.  t4  virdpyvpa  XP^<^^°; 
counterfeit  gold  coins,  i.e.  what  is  in  reality  silver  (beneath),  designates 
the  real  essence  in  contrast  to  the  accidental,  the  transitory,  perishable 
appearance  or  dream.  6vap,  6v€ipos,  are  derived  from  dvk,  'oben  auf,  'on 
the  surface*,  'apparent'.  See  Prellwitz.  Boisacq  does  not  accept  posi- 
tively the  suggested  derivations  of  Prellwitz,  though  he  refers  to  his 
theory  of  the  derivation  of  iirap.  See  E.  W.  Fay,  The  Classical  Quarterly, 
11,  212,  for  a  different  view. 

i^^Frazer,  Belief  in  Immortality,  207,  states  that  at  Wagawaga,  among  the 
Massim  in  British  New  Guinea,  the  name  for  the  spirit  or  soul  of  the  dead 
person  is  arugo,  the  word  used  for  a  man's  shadow  or  reflection  in  a  glass 
or  in  water.  This  simile  is  an  anthropological  commonplace :  see  Spencer* 
Tylor,  Rohde,  for  abundant  references. 


The  Odyssey  47 

spirit  i^uxi])  flies  away  like  a  dream  from  the  charred  body.*** 
In  19,  581  past  joys  are  to  be  remembered  in  dreamsP^ 

These  shorter  references  are  of  little  moment  for  the  study  of 
the  economy  of  the  plot  or  of  the  internal  development  of  the 
dream  device,  but  they  throw  light  on  the  confusion  which  I 
have  emphasized  (supra,  35  ff.)  as  existing  between  the  artis- 
tically primitive  descriptions  and  the  more  advanced  portrayals. 

Summary  for  the  Homeric  Poems 

In  a  rapid  review  of  these  passages,  we  find  the  poet  of  the 
Iliad  experimenting  in  the  use  of  the  dream  as  a  means  of  advan- 
cing the  plot.  He  has  no  great  familiarity  with  this  device; 
hence  he  employs  it  only  once.^^^  In  addition,  the  loose  structure 
of  the  Iliad  demanded  such  frequent  divine  intervention  for  the 
practically  independent  incidents  that  the  poet  was  forced  back 
upon  artifices  with  which,  we  may  suppose,  the  poetry  of  the 
day  was  better  acquainted, —  waking  visions,  the  physical  ap- 
pearing of  present,  living  deities,  and  other  divine  machinery, 
frankly  employed.  Consequently  the  dream  in  this  early  form 
shows  no  complexity  as  a  factor  in  advancing  the  narrative.  It 
is  elemental,  straightforward,  and  directly  applied.  It  does  not 
work  on  the  plot  through  an  intangible  emotion,  as  in  the 

i93See  Granger,  42.  For  the  influence  of  the  dream-image  upon  primi- 
tive and  more  advanced  eschatology,  see  above,  note  40.  Add  Spencer 
(1906),  1,  185;  784;  A.  Lang,  Book  of  Dreams  and  Ghosts,  109  (London, 
1897) ;  F.  B.  Jevons,  An  Introduction  to  the  History  of  Religion,  43  (London, 
1896). 

i^^The  idea  here  expressed  closely  approximates  two  modem  conceptions 
of  the  dream:  first,  that  which  finds  its  psychical  basis  largely  in  mem- 
ory (this  theory  is  by  no  means  new.  Aristotle  had  formulated  it:  cf. 
Tlepl  '^vvirvLuv,  S458-462,  and  Hepi  t^s  Ka^'  "tirvov  Ma^rtK^s,  S462-464; 
Buchsenchiitz,  17  ff.);  secondly,  the  theory  of  Freud  that  the  dream  is 
the  fulfilment  of  a  (suppressed)  desire:  see  his  third  chapter,  Der  Traum 
ist  eine  Wunscherfiillung,  94-102.  A  closer  approximation  to  the  latter 
is  found  in  Euripides,  Iph.  Taur.  44-46;  see  below,  95,  n.  369.  For  Od, 
24,  12  see  supra,  42. 

^^Hliad,  2,  1  ff . ;    supra,  2-9. 


48  The  Dream  in  Homer  and  Greek  Tragedy 

encouragement  of  Penelope  in  Odyssey,  4,  787-841,  or  prepare  us 
for  the  developments  of  the  plot  by  creating  an  atmosphere,  as 
in  Odyssey,  19,  509-581.196 

With  the  Odyssey  it  is  different.  While  the  plot  of  the  Iliad 
seems  to  be  staged  on  Olympus,  the  plot  of  the  Odyssey  rests 
more  largely  on  earth.  And  so  it  is  easier,  in  the  former,  to 
show  the  gods  acting;  in  the  latter,  it  is  easier  to  portray  the 
means,  less  patently  supernatural,  through  which  the  gods  act. 
The  dream  is  suited  to  fill  this  want  and  so  the  poet  of  the  later 
work,  accepts  the  dream  and  develops  it  to  meet  this  need.  In 
the  first  place  the  dream  is  more  frequently  used  to  forward  the 
action  and  with  a  quite  noticeable  advance  upon  the  ruder 
pioneer  work  of  the  earlier  poet.  In  the  Odyssey  the  influence  of 
the  dream  on  the  plot  is,  at  times,  more  indirect  and  subtle; 
for  example,  in  4, 787-841  the  dream  affects  the  action  of  the  plot 
through  the  encouragement  of  Penelope.^^^  Or  the  influence 
may  extend  to  a  greater  number  of  links  in  the  chain  of  incidents 
which  form  the  story,  as  in  6,  13-51,  where  the  whole  Phaeacian 
episode  is  made  possible  by  Nausicaa's  nocturnal  vision.^^^  Or, 
again,  it  may  simply  strike  the  keynote^  giyejthe  atmosphere, 
add  a  color-effect  to  prepare  for  what  is  to  come,  uses  to  which 
the  earlier  poet  had  not  learned  to  put  it.^^^ 

In  both  poems  the  attitude  of  the  poet  toward  the  dream  is 
one  of  respect  and  honor.  He  never  debases  it  by  employing 
it  merely  to  add  a  petty  prettiness,  but  always  introduces  it  at 
a  crisis.200  '~'  '    ' 

i^^Supra,  26  and  32,  respectively. 

la^Supra,  25-26. 

i98Supra,  29-30. 

i990i.  19.  509-581;   supra.  31-32. 

2ooSupra,  8;  11;  25;  29;  31.  The  mention  of  dream  phenomena  des- 
cribed on  page  20  is  an  exception  to  this  statement.  This  debasing  was 
left  for  Euripides;  at  least  we  must  so  conclude  from  the  evidence  sup- 
plied by  the  extant  literature.  The  introduction  of  a  dream  at  the 
crisis  became  an  unfailing  convention  for  many  non-Alexandrian  writ- 
ers,   so  that    the   turning    point    of  an   action   was  almost  invariably 


The  Odyssey  '  49 

In  the  Iliad  Zeus  is  usually  the  divinity  that  sends  the  dream 
and  he  is  generally  regarded  as  its  source  by  the  persons  of  the 

attended  by  the  relation  of  a  pertinent  dream.  Especially  is  this 
true  of  the  writers  of  romantic  (as  opposed  to  pragmatic)  history. 
Consider  the  following  examples  (from  three  writers  of  this  class,  a 
Greek,  a  Roman,  and  a  Greco-Roman)  of  dreams  at  or  preceding 
the  crisis  in  personal  or  national  fortunes:  Herodotus,  1,  33-45,  the 
dream  of  Croesus  bereft  of  his  son  Atys;  107  ff.,  the  dream  of  Astyages 
concerning  Mandane;  209,  of  Cyrus  immediately  after  crossing  the  Araxes, 
before  his  defeat  and  death  at  the  hands  of  the  Massagetae;  2,  139,  152, 
the  dream  of  Sabaco,  king  of  the  Ethiopians,  which  led  to  his  withdrawal 
from  Egypt;  2,  141,  the  dream  of  Sethon  before  the  successful  battle  with 
Sanacharibus,  king  of  the  Arabians  and  Assyrians;  3,  30,  65,  the  dream 
of  Cambyses  before  he  slew  his  brother  Smerdis;  3,  124,  the  dream  of  the 
daughter  of  the  Samian  tyrant  Polycrates  before  his  departure  for  Magnesia 
and  his  death  there;  5,  55,  56,  62,  the  dream  in  which  Hipparchus  was 
warned  of  his  death  at  the  hands  of  Harmodius  and  Aristogeiton;  6,  107, 
Hippias'  dream  before  the  battle  of  Marathon;  6,  131,  the  dream  of 
Agarista,  wife  of  Xanthippus,  a  few  days  before  she  gave  birth  to  Pericles; 

7,  12-19,  48,  the  famous  dream  which,  appearing  to  Xerxes  and  Artabanus, 
forced  the  momentous  decision  to  invade  Hellas  (two  other  dreams  are 
introduced,  also,  fittingly  to  mark  this  mighty  crisis);  8,  54,  Xerxes,  at 
the  height  of  his  success,  after  the  sacking  of  Athens  and  just  before 
Salamis,  repents  of  his  sacrilege  and  sends  the  exiles  back  to  the  Acropolis 
to  sacrifice  as  was  their  wont.  Herodotus  suspects  that  his  action  may 
have  been  prompted  by  a  dream.     Livy,  2,  36,  dream  of  Titus  Latinius; 

8,  6,  9-10,  dream  of  the  consuls,  Titus  Manlius  and  Decius  Mus,  before 
the  battle  of  Mount  Vesuvius;  21,  22,  Hannibal's  encouraging  dream 
before  he  crossed  the  Ebro ;  25,  38,  dream  of  Lucius  Marcius  which  inspired 
him  to  save  the  armies  after  the  defeat  of  the  leaders,  Publius  and  Cornelius 
Scipio;  26,  17,  Scipio  Africanus  Maior,  on  setting  out  to  retrieve  the  pro- 
vince of  Spain,  declares  that  his  dreams  portend  success  (feigning  dreams 
for  his  guidance  at  important  crises  was  one  of  Scipio 's  strongest  holds 
upon  the  imagination  of  the  people:  26,  19).  Plutarch,  Agesilaus,  6, 
dream  of  A.  before  his  ill-fated  expedition  into  Asia;  Alcibiades,  39, 
dream  of  A.  just  before  his  tragic  death;  Alexander,  2,  dream  of 
Olympias,  wife  of  Philip,  before  Alexander's  birth;  18,  of  Darius 
before  he  set  out  from  Susa  to  meet  Alexander;  24,  at  siege  of  Tyre, 
Alexander  and  the  Tyrians  dream  pertinent  dreams;  26,  a  dream 
directs  Alexander  to  the  site  on  which  he  was  to  build  Alexandria;  41, 
dream  of  A.  at  a  time  of  critical  illness  to  his  friend,  Krateros;  50,  dream 
of  A.  about  Kleitos  before  A.  ran  him  through  the  body  in  a  brawl;  Anto- 


50         The  Dream  in  Homer  and  Greek  Tragedy 

story.201  Still,  there  is  one  case  in  which  the  dream  is  credited 
to  Athene,2°2  and  another  in  which  the  dream  comes  without 
reference  being  made  to  any  deity  who  may  be  considered  as 

nius,  22,  warned  by  a  friend's  dream,  Octavius  escapes  from  death  at 
Philippi  (cf.  also,  Brutus,  41;  Dio  Cass.  47,  41);  Aristides,  11,  in  a 
dream  Zeus  points  out  the  field  at  Plataea  on  which  the  battle  should  be 
fought;  19,  death  of  Mardonius  at  Plataea  foretold  by  a  dream;  Brutus, 
20,  Cinna's  dream  before  he  was  torn  to  pieces  by  the  angered  mob; 
41  (cf .  Ant.  22,  above) ;  Caesar,  32,  allegorical,  sexual  dream  before  C. 
crossed  the  Rubicon  (according  to  Suetonius,  Caes.  7  and  Dio  Cass. 
41,  24,  this  dream  came  to  Caesar  at  Gades);  42,  dream  of  Pompeius 
before  Pharsalus  (cf.  Pomp.  68);  63,  very  elaborate  tale  of  Calpurnia's 
dreams  before  the  murder  of  Caesar;  68,  Cinna's  dream  (cf.  above, 
Brutus,  20);  Cimon,  18,  C.'s  dream  when  all  was  ready  for  the  expedition 
against  Cyprus  and  Egypt  during  which  he  met  his  death;  Cicero,  44, 
dream  which  attached  C.  to  Octavianus  (cf.  Dio  Cass.  45,  2,  for  a  dif- 
ferent version  of  the  same  dream;  also,  Suetonius,  Aug.  94);  Cleomenes,  7, 
C.'s  dream  before  he  abolished  the  ephors;  Coriolanus,  24,  dream  of  Titus 
Latinus  (Livy,  2,  36,  reads  Latinius)  when  Rome  was  threatened  by  the 
Volscians;  Crassus,  12,  Onatius  Aurelius'  dream  brings  about  the  reconci- 
liation of  Crassus  and  Pompey  (cf.  Pompey,  23);  Demetrius,  19,  dream 
of  Medius  before  the  disaster  which  befell  Antigonus;  29,  dream  of 
Demetrius  before  his  defeat  in  battle;  C.  Gracchus,  1,  dream  of  G.  which 
forced  him  from  retirement  into  public  life  and  to  his  death  (cf.  Cicero, 
Div.  1,  26);  Demosthenes,  29,  dream  of  D.,  just  before  his  death,  about 
the  tragic  actor  Archias;  Eumenes,  6,  E.'s  dream  before  his  decisive 
victory  over  Krateros  (cf.  also  13);  Lucullus,  10,  dream  of  Aristagoras 
when  Cyzicus  was  in  straits  from  the  siege  by  Mithridates;  12,  dream  of 
Lucullus  before  his  naval  victory;  Pelopidas,  20-22,  dream  of  the  leader 
of  the  Sacred  Band  of  Thebans  before  the  battle  of  Leuktra;  Pericles,  3, 
dream  of  Agariste  before  the  birth  of  her  son  Pericles;  Pompeius,  23  (cf. 
above,  Crassus,  12) ;  68,  P.'s  dream  before  Pharsalus;  73,  dream  of  Peticius, 
shipmaster,  before  he  received  Pompey  in  distress;  Pyrrhus,  11,  dream  of 
P.  before  capture  of  Beroea;  29,  dream  of  P.  before  his  failure  at  Sparta; 
Themistocles,  26,  T.'s  dream  before  his  successful  flight  to  Xerxes;  30, 
a  dream  gives  T.  a  warning  which  is  responsible  for  his  escape  from  assas- 
sination; Sulla,  9,  S.'s  dream  when  he  was  about  to  attack  Rome,  which 
was  in  the  hands  of  the  Marians;  28,  S.'s  prophetic  dream  the  night  before 
a  victorious  contest  with  the  Marians. 

^°Uliad,  1,  63;   2,  26. 

^^Iliad,  10,  496. 


The  Odyssey  51 

having  sent  it.^^  But  in  the  Odyssey,  where  the  supreme  divine 
direction  of  the  plot  (which  in  the  Iliad  is  in  the  hands  of  Zeus) 
falls  to  the  lot  of  Athene,  this  goddess  is  responsible  for  the 
majority  of  the  dreams,^^^  although  there  is  a  very  elaborate 
dream^os  which  is  not  ascribed  to  any  particular  divinity.  The 
receiver  of  the  dream  in  the  Iliad  is  in  each  case  a  male;^^  in  the 
Odyssey  it  is  a  woman.^o^  The  latter  conception  becomes  the 
usual  convention  for  tragedy,  though  other  departments  of 
poetry  show  eclecticism.^^^ 

The  two  poems  show  five  forms  in  which  the  dream  appears. 
Of  these,  two  are  peculiar  to  the  Iliad,  two  are  restricted  to  the 
Odyssey,  and  one  is  common  to  both  poems.  Peculiar  to  the 
Iliad  are  (a)  "Qyetgoq  or  a  dream  daimon  which  the  gods  send  to 
the  sleeper,2o^  and  (b)  the  ghost  of  the  dead  which  appears  in  a 
dream.210    in  the  form  common  to  both  poems  (c)  an  unsub- 

^^^Iliad,  23,  62-107.  This  sending  of  dreams  by  the  dead  is  characteristic 
of  the  only  dream  which  is  common  to  the  three  writers  of  tragedy,  Aeschy- 
lus, Choe.b2Q?i.  (infra,  70-74);  Sophocles,  Electra,  417  ff.  (infra,  79-84) ; 
Euripides,  Orest.  616  ff.  (infra,  102).  The  ghosts  of  the  dead  return  to 
haunt  or  send  dreams  to  plague  those  who  have  done  them  ill,  even 
though  the  wrong  was  unintentional.  Cf.  the  following  references: 
Vergil,  Aen.  4,  385;  Horace,  Epod.  5,  91;  Tibullus,  1,  5,  51;  2,  6,  37; 
Propertius,  4,  7,  89;  Ovid,  Fasti,  3,  639;  Ibis,  141;  Plutarch,  De  Sera 
Num.  Vind.  5QQc',  Valerius  Flaccus,  3,  384;  Statius,  TAcfr.  3,  74;  Diogenes 
Laertius,  8,  32;  Ammianus  Marcellinus,  14,  11,  17. 

^^Od.  4,  7S7-S41;   6,  13-51. 

206Od.  19,  535-581. 

^^miad,  2,  1-47;    10,  496;   23,  62-107. 

207OJ.  4,  787-841;   6,  13-51;   19,  535-581;  20,  87-90. 

"8The  sending  of  the  dream  to  the  woman  is,  with  one  exception,  the 
unbroken  rule  in  tragedy  wherever  the  dream  is  related  in  extenso.  See 
my  discussion,  infra,  65,  and  except  the  charioteer's  dream  in  the  Rhesus. 

^^Uliad,  2,  6-82,  supra,  2-3;  but  cf.  Od.  20,  87-90;  Rohde,  1,  7;  and  Hey, 
10. 

^^miad,  23,  62-107;  supra,  12-20.  I  distinguish,  for  this  classification, 
the  etSuXov  of  the  dead  from  the  phantom  of  a  living  person  or  of  an  im- 
mortal god  such  as  I  meffition  in  (c). 


52  The  Dream  in  Homer  and  Greek  Tragedy 

stantial  wraith,  phantom,  sTBwXov,  appears.^i^  The  two  concep- 
tions restricted  to  the  Odyssey  are  (d)  the  dream  in  which  the 
divinity  in  person  comes  to  the  sleeper  in  whom  the  god  is 
interested,^^^  and  (e)  the  dream  in  which  neither  men  nor  gods 
appear,  but  only  things,  and  that  too  in  an  allegorical  relation.^i® 

The  external  origin  and  the  objectivity  of  the  major  dreams  in 
both  poems  I  have  frequently  commented  upon.^^^  The. first 
allegorical  dream  appears  in  the  Odyssey,  the  evident  product 
of  a  later  technique.  Yet  even  in  this  case  the  poet's  lack  of 
familiarity  in  the  handling  of  the  allegorical  dream  forces  him  to 
couple  the  interpretation  with  the  allegory  to  soften  the  inno- 
vation.2^^ 

There  are  other  evidences  in  the  Odyssey  of  increased  study 
and  improved  form.  For  example,  in  the  conversation  of 
Achilles  with  Patroclus'  ghost,  Iliad,  23,  62-107,  there  is  the 
germ  of  a  dialogue-dream;  this  germ  a  dream  in  the  Odyssey 
presents  in  a  later  and  more  highly  developed  form  in  the  longer 
dialogue  of  Penelope  and  Iphthime,  4,  787-841.  This  growing 
elaboration  in  the  Odyssey  affords  striking  confirmation  of  the 
later  date  commonly  accepted  for  this  poem.  ^  ^ 

A  glance  thus  in  review  shows  the  dream-device  in  the  making 
and  indicates  the  wide  range,  in  embryo  at  least,  of  the  employ- 
ment and  the  technique  of  the  dream  from  which  later  writers 
could  choose. 

^^miad,  10,  496-497,  supra,  9-12;   Od.  4,  787-841,  supra,  24-27. 

2i20d.  6,  13-51,  Athene. 

8130^.  19,  535-581,  supra,  30-34. 

2i4Supra,  3,  10,  12,  22,  29. 

2i6Supra,  34. 


HESIOD 

/  ( Though  much  is  said  of  sleep  in  Hesiod's  poems,  one  would 
'expect,  a  priori,  from  their  undramatic  nature,  little  resort  to 
the  dream-device.216  That  expectation  is  confirmed;  there  is 
only  one  passage  which  is  pertinent  to  a  study  of  the  dream. 
This  passage  is  the  prologue  to  the  later  poem,  the  Theogony}^J/ 
The  discussion  as  to  whether  the  appearance  of  the  Muses  here 
is  a  waking  vision  or  a  dream  is  as  old  as  the  day  of  the  Emperor 
Marcus  Aurelius  and  Fronto.^^s  into  that,  however,  we  need 
not  go.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  the  Muses  (whatever  may  be  our 
decision  as  to  the  exact  force  of  the  tenses  of  ixsppwaavTo  [8]  and 
<jTeixov  [10],  whether  they  are  habitual  or  specific  in  reference)*^* 
do  visit  Hesiod  by  night  (  ivvu^tat,  10),  as  the  gods  are  wont  to 

^"Hesiod  really  lies  outside  the  scope  of  this  present  narrowly  cir- 
cumscribed study.  I  include  him  roughly  among  the  writers  of  epic  in 
accord  with  the  definition  of  Aristotle.  In  my  discussion  of  Hesiod  I 
cite  from  the  edition  of  Rzach,  Leipzig,  1902.  In  the  Theogony,  211-212, 
Night  is  the  mother  of  Death,  Sleep  and  the  tribe  of  Dreams,  <t>v\ov  'Ovetpwv; 
in  756,  Hypnos  and  Thanatos  are  brothers,  and  in  758,  the  sons  of  black 
Night;  in  762-766,  the  two  brothers  are  contrasted,  the  one  gentle  to 
mortals,  the  other  with  a  heart  of  bronze;  in  fr.  121  (157)  we  have /toXa«cdf 
ijiTPOi;  in  fr.  188,  3-4,  sleep  'falls  upon  the  eyelids'.  These  descriptions 
may  be  compared  with  my  discussion  of  the  same  conceptions  in  Homer, 
supra,  36-42. 

"^For  this  decision  about  the  chronology,  compare  the  following  note 
from  Messer,  79:  "Horum  duorum  carminum  recentius  esse  Theogoniam 
inter  omnes  constat:  cf.  Dimitrijevid,  Studia  Hesiodea,  5-10;  A.  Meyer, 
De  compositione  Theogoniae  Hesiodeae,  Berol.  1887,  83;  E.  Lisco,  Quaes- 
Hones  Hesiodeae,  Goett.,  1903,  4-6;  Rzach, Pauly-Wissowa,S  (1913),  1178". 

*^8Fronto,  1,  2.  See  Messer,  80.  For  this  confusion  of  dream,  vision 
and  real  appearance,  cf.  Vergil,  Aen.  4,  222-278  and  4,  554-570,  7,  341  ff. 
and  7,  413-480;  Plutarch,  Brut.  36-37  and  Valerius  Maximus,  1,  7; 
Ovid,  Met.  8,  453  and  Diodorus  Siculus,  4,  34,  6;  Hey,  14. 

*i^See  the  editors  on  iireppdtravTo  (8)  and  ffreixov  (10),  and  add  F.  G, 
Welcker,  Die  Hesiodische  Theogonie,  59  ff.  (Elberfeld,  1865). 

63 


M- 


54         The  Dream  in  Homer  and  Greek  Tragedy 

visit  bards  f^^  they  commune  with  him,  and  inspire  him  to  song. 
But  dream  or  waking  vision,  this  passage  is  of  supreme  impor- 
tance as  the  ancestor  of  many  dream-prologues  in  ancient  and 
mediaeval  literature.^^^ 

The  Muses  have  been  dancing  on  Helicon  (9) ;  thence  they 
make  their  way  by  night  to  the  poet,  who  is  'tending  his  flock 
beneath  divine  Helicon'  (23).  They  order  him  to  compose  a 
song  and  they  give  to  him  a  branch  of  the  bay  tree,  sacred  to 
Apollo,  as  a  S)nnbol  of  his  profession  as  a  bard. 

The  Muses  come  to  him  of  their  own  volition.  The  nearest 
approach  here  to  the  idea  of  a  guiding  divinity  is  in  the  presenta- 
tion of  a  staff  of  Apollo's  bay  tree,  but  that  gift  would  be  a 
conventional  gift  from  Apollo's  choir  to  a  poet,  for  the  poet  was 
under  Apollo's  protection. 

This  method  of  indicating  the  source  of  the  poet's  inspiration 
is  a  distinct  advance  upon  the  Homeric  appeal  to  the  Muses. 
The  Homeric  form  of  address  is  found  in  lines  104-115  of  the 
Theogony.  And  so  the  prologue  as  a  whole  would  seem  to  be 
an  artistic  compromise  between  an  old  form  such  as  is  found  in 
Homer  and  a  new  form  of  the  poet's  own  invention  (or  adoption) . 
There  may  be  many  good  reasons  for  believing  this  prologue 
(1-115)  a  hotch  potch  of  successive  recensions  and  interpolations 
by  the  early  rhapsodists  ;222  but  the  existing  contaminatio  of  two 

220  'Ho-tiSoi;  rk  diravra  i^  epfivvelas  Kap6\ov  S^ttX,  59  (Athens,  1889),  will 
furnish  parallels. 

22iCallimachus,  Aitia,  according  to  Anth.  Pal.  7,  42  (see  Messer,  81); 
Eratosthenes,  Hermes  (cf.  Dilthey,  De  Callimachi  Cydippa,  Leipzig,  1863, 
15);  Alexander  Aetolus,  Apollo  (Meineke,  Analecta  Alexandrina,  xx,  59 
and  Dilthey,  1.  c.  15,  n.  4) ;  Ennius,  Annales,  1,  iv-xi  (cf.  Vahlen,  cxliv  ff.) ; 
Propertius,  3,  3;  Ovid,  Amor.  3,  1-70;  Fasti,  1,  99-282;  3,  167  ff.;  4,  193 
fl.;  6,  9;  Ex  Ponto,  3,  3;  4,  4.  For  the  mediaeval  visions  consult  M. 
Dods,  Forerunners  of  Dante,  chap.  6,  Mediaeval  Legends  (Edinburgh, 
1903).  The  footnotes  throughout  this  work  are  of  exceptional  value  in 
tracing  the  development  of  the  dream  and  the  vision  through  the  post- 
classical  period  and  the  Middle  Ages,  down  to  Dante. 

2220n  the  composition  and  authorship  of  the  prologue,  see  O.  Gruppe, 
Die  Griech.  Kulte  u.  Mythen,  1,  599  fl.;  EUger,  Die  Zusatze  zu  dem  Prooemi- 
um  der  Hesiod.  Theogonie  (BerHn,  1883);  Fick,  Hesiods  Gedichte  (Goett., 
1887). 


Hesiod  65 

types  of  introduction  is  no  argument  in  support  of  that  theory. 
To  be  sure,  lines  104-115  are  cast  in  an  earlier  artistic  mould, 
but  the  practice  of  combining  a  primitive  with  a  later  poetical 
form  found  favor  even  as  late  as  Ennius.^^^  If  then,  Ennius,  a 
writer  drawing  his  poetic  inspiration  from  so  many  literary, 
bookish  sources,  could  adopt  and  use  in  jiixtaposition  two  forms 
for  showing  the  divine  authorization  of  his  poem  without  feeling 
that  there  was  anything  incongruous  in  this  combination,  surely 
an  equal  liberty  might  safely  be  assumed  for  the  earlier  poet, 
Hesiod. 

I  have  had  occasion  to  treat  at  length,  in  another  connection, 
the  problems  of  this  dream  in  the  Theogony,  tracing  its  line  of 
descent  in  the  literature,  by  a  chain  of  exposition  frankly  based 
on  mere  inferences,  down  through  the  Greek  and  the  Roman 
poets.  I  refer  the  reader  to  that  discussion.^^^  For  the  present 
discussion  the  importance  of  this  dream  or  vision  is,  not  that  it 
guides  and  controls  the  action — action  the  didactic  poem  has 
not — ,  but  that  it  supplies  the  raison  d'  etre  of  the  whole  pro- 
duction. For  Homer  appeals  to  the  Muse  to  sing  through  him 
the  wrath  of  Achilles  or  the  many  wanderings  of  Odysseus,  but 
Hesiod  is  ordered  by  the  Muses  to  sing /or  them.  Not  only  will 
he  be  an  inspired  bard,  but  he  will  be  a  poet  drawing  his  original 
command  from  deity. 

223^  WW.  1,  i-xi  (cf.  Vahlen,  cxlvi  ff.).  Cf.  also  the  contamination  of  the 
primitive,  direct  dream  with  the  allegorical  dream,  Od.  19,  535-581,  supra, 
34.  My  point  here  is  that  lines  104-115  cannot  be  secluded  as  spurious 
merely  on  the  ground  that  the  conception  differs  from  that  in  the  earlier 
part  of  the  prologue. 

224Messer,  78-92. 


TKAGEDY 

As  we  turn  from  one  department  of  literature  to  another  we 
often  find  that  the  dream  which  is  of  the  same  type  in  essence 
may  be  so  disguised  in  its  superficial  aspects  by  the  limitations 
of  the  new  genre  that  we  have  difficulty  in  identifying  it  in  its 
new  form.  In  tragedy  the  dramatic  background,  the  change  in 
the  relations  of  the  poet  with  his  audience,  the  conventions  of 
the  different  field,  all  force  modifications  which  make  it  difficult, 
at  times,  to  trace  back  to  their  archetype  dreams  having  a  com- 
mon origin.  In  the  epic  we  have  the  omnipresent,  omniscient 
narrator,  who  can  see  not  only  through  walls  and  doors,  but 
through  minds  and  hearts  and  motives,  even  those  of  deity  and 
fate ;  he  is  present  at  and  beholds  every  action  and  has  entry  to 
every  public  council  and  knows  every  secret  thought  of  Olympus. 
From  him  the  objective  machinery  of  the  dream  is  not  concealed. 

In  didactic  poetry  the  poet  speaks  in  propria  persona.  He 
may  claim  that"  the  Muses  have  inspired  him;  but  after  this 
original  authorization  he  continues  his  teaching  as  a  mortal 
having  a  greater  or  smaller  measure  of  expert  human  knowledge 
of  the  subject  in  which  he  professes  to  instruct.  In  this  depart- 
ment a  wide  play  of  the  imagination,  which  is  necessary  for  any 
extensive  employment  of  so  highly  artificial  a  device  as  the 
dream,  is  lacking.  This  lack  leads  to  an  almost  total  absence 
of  the  dream. 

In  the  department  of  tragedy  the-omniscient  narrator  and  the 
didactic  poet  cannot  appear  as.  the jreportersgf  the  plot,  and  the 
story  must  be  told  and  the  action  furthered  by  the  living  people 
involved  in  the  toils  of  the  plot.  They  cannot  have  the  insight 
of  the  epic  poet,  who  knows  all  happenings  and  all  thoughts  in 
heaven  and  among  men.  They  cannot  have  the  privilege  of 
explaining  to  their  audience  the  cause  or  the  background  of  the 
story,  as  can  the  poet  who  speaks  in  his  own  person.  The 
extent  of  the  knowledge  of  each  dramatis  persona  is  limited,  as 

56 


Tragedy  57 

is  the  knowledge  of  persons  in  real  life,  to  the  bounds  demanded 
by  verisimilitude. 

The  dream  as  it  passes  through  the  different  departments  of 
literature  naturally  assumes  different  accidental  shapes.  A 
dream  daimon  sent  by  Zeus  will  not  often  appear  upon  the 
stage.  The  objectivity,  the  personality  of  the  dream  must  usu- 
ally correspond  to  the  experiences  and  the  knowledge  of  the 
person  represented  by  the  actor  on  the  stage.  Deities  will 
rarely  be  found  telling  the  audience  of  their  plans  in  respect  to 
sending  dream  daimons,  or  intangible  wraiths,  or  of  coming 
themselves  to  appear  to  mortals.  The  dramatic  poet  must  get 
his  effects  through  a  different  mediimi,  and  this  mediimi  will 
govern  and  change  the  form  of  dreams  in  tragedy  which  are  in 
essence  the  same  as  their  prototypes  in  some  other  department. 
I  desire  to  stress  this  point,  for  I  am  fully  convinced  that  the 
different  types  of  dreams  employed  in  tragedy  find  their  being  in 
an  imitation,  more  or  less  direct,  of  the  dreams  used  by  Homer. 
Freely  as  the  dramatic  poets  handled  the  dream  and  much  as 
they  developed  its  content  and  its  technique,  the  embryo  of  all 
the  various  forms  is  extant  in  the  early  epic. 

Tragedy  took  over  numerous  motifs  which  already  existed 
in  the  epos —  anagnorisis,^^^  the  deus  ex  machina,  and  a  host  of 
others.  Among  these  were  mantic  and  the  dream.  The  dream 
exists  in  many  cases  in  the  jjlu0o<;  which  the  epic  tells,  and  so, 
when  the  narrative  is  dramatized,  the  tragic  poet  often  adopts 
it.  Or  else  the  dream  is  imported  by  the  tragic  poet  into  the 
tale,  which  did  not  originally  contain  it,  on  the  model  of  the 
dream  in  the  epic.  The  point  to  be  remembered  is  that  the 
immediate  source  of  the  dream  in  tragedy  is  to  be  found  not  in 
religion  and  cult,  but  in  the  literature,   that  is,  the  source  of  the 

225The  origin  of  the  anagnorisis  of  tragedy,  P.  Hoffmann,  De  Anagnorismo, 
61-69  (Diss.  Vrat.  1910):  Unde  Anagnorisis  in  Dramata  Pervenerit, 
traces  back  through  the  lyric  and  the  epic  to  the  original  mythos.  Cf .  also 
Staehlin,  35;  212-213.  Much  that  Staehlin  says  here  about  mantic  is 
equally  applicable  to  the  dream. 


58  The  Dream  in  Homer  and  Greek  Tragedy 

dream  in  tragedy  is  a  bookish,  artistic  source.^^sa  'pj^jg  (Jistinc- 
tion  holds  throughout  for  Greek  and  Latin  belles-lettres.  For 
there  is  a  gulf  fixed — Aristophanes  and  the  comedy  in  general 
form  an  exception^^^ — between  the  dream  gods  of  the  literature 
and  the  dream  gods  of  the  people,  which  is  never  spanned  till 
the  popularity  of  the  dream  cult  forced  the  adoption  of  that  cult 
by  the  priests  of  all  the  Ol3rmpian  deities.  The  interaction 
between  the  two  conceptions  before  that  adoption  seems  to  be 
practically  negligible.^^? 

225apQj.  ii^Q  defense  of  this  statement,  see  infra,  n.  227. 

226Comedy  busied  itself  with  a  satire  of  contemporaneous  beliefs  and 
contemporaneous  practices.  Its  function  was  to  lampoon  and  correct 
the  life  which  the  audience  knew.  It  could  not  limp  behind  that  life. 
So  one  does  not  wonder  that  the  popular  equivalent  of  the  dream  which 
the  tragic  poets  used  for  purposes  of  motivation,  to  wit,  incubation,  was 
ridiculed  in  comedy.  The  scene  in  the  Plutus,  659  ff.,  in  which  this 
practice  is  so  uproariously  burlesqued  should  occasion  no  surprise. 

227Incubation,  Tempelschlaf ,  is  the  popular  form  in  every  day  life  of  the 
literary  motif  which  is  here  discussed.  The  works  on  incubation  (i.e. 
the  non-literary  form  of  the  divinely  sent  and  the  divinely  acting  dream) 
agree  in  holding  that  widespread  practice  of  incubation  was  confined  to 
the  worship  of  Asclepius  and  of  the  allied  Amphiaraus,  Trophonius, 
Faunus,  Podalirius,  Calchas,  Isis,  Sarapis,  and,  in  general,  the  chthonic 
divinities.  Cf.  Deubner  and  Hamilton,  passim;  Biichsenschutz,  35-37; 
Campbell,  227;  231;  368;  Bouche-Leclercq,  2,  251;  269;  301;  3,  76; 
275;  310;  380-381;  Friedlander,  SittengescUchte  Roms\  3,  440  ff.;  De 
Marchi,  1,  238-239;  Dill,  459-460;  Maury,  Magi^,  231;  237-240;  Dyer, 
235-236;  242;  248;  Gilbert,  251;  Gomperz,  Essays,  72.  The  artistic 
literature  of  the  Greeks  and  the  Romans  shows  no  such  preference.  To 
the  Greek  examples  which  I  cite  in  the  text  of  this  discussion,  add  the 
following  divinities  which  appear  in  dreams  or  send  dreams  in  Latin 
literature:  Plautus,  Jupiter,  Aesculapius;  Vergil,  Great  Mother,  Apollo, 
Mercury,  Jupiter,  Somnus,  Juno;  Horace,  Quirinus;  Livy,  Jupiter; 
TibuUus,  Apollo;  Propertius,  Apollo;  Ovid,  Cupid,  Venus,  Jupiter,  Pan, 
Faunus,  Ceres,  Somnus,  Isis,  Aesculapius;  the  Octavia,  the  gods  above 
{super os),  756;  Petronius,  Priapus,  Neptune;  Statius,  Jupiter,  Apollo, 
Mercury,  Juno,  Venus,  Somnus;  Valerius  Flaccus,  Jupiter,  Somnus; 
Silius  Italicus,  Juno,  Mercury,  Somnus,  Minerva,  and  the  deified  Vir- 
tus, Voluptas,  Oenotria  Tellus.  My  collections  show  indubitably  that 
the  belletristic  dream  divinities  and  those  of  the  popular  cult  remained 


Tragedy  59 

The  dream  is  often  unnecessary  to_the  myth  and  hence  the 
tragic  writers,  who  handled  the  myths^ so  freely,  could  have 
suppressed  it  had  they  so  desired.  But  they  found  in  it  an 
artistic  medium  through  which  they  could  secure  definite  literary 
effects  and  not  only  adopted  it  when  treating  the  epic  legends  in 
which  it  already  existed,  but  often  added  it  to  those  that  did  not 
contain  it.  For  example,  in  the  Persae,  the  story,  though  it  has 
a  historical  background,  pretends  to  no  authenticity  in  its 
details.  The  dream  was  probably  incorporated  of  choice  by  the 
author.228 

Divination  played  in  the  tragedies  the  principal  r61e,  and  was 
the  main  guide  of  the  plot ;  the  r61e  of  the  dream  was  admittedly 
secondary.  But  the  importance  of  the  latter  should  not  be 
underrated  and  is  more  often  neglected  and  overlooked  than  too 
greatly  emphasized. 

almost  entirely  distinct.  There  is  this  reservation  to  be  made,  however: 
a  time  came  when  coincidence — even  without  interaction — could  not  be 
avoided.  The  divinities  of  the  Roman  Olympus  of  the  decadence  were 
so  little  differentiated  theologically,  their  powers  and  their  hierarchy  so 
confused,  that  it  is  incredible  that  there  corresponded  to  the  invoked  deity 
any  precise  conception  of  the  activity  which  he  was  able  to  exercise. 
When,  therefore,  the  popularity  of  the  dream  cult  spread,  the  priests 
of  all  these  divinities  adopted  dream-sending  as  a  further  activity  of  their 
gods./  Under  these  conditions  all  gods,  even  the  exclusive  circle  of  Olym- 
pus, became  incubation  gods.  For  this  adoption  of  dream-sending  by 
all  the  Olympian  gods,  cf.  De  Marchi,  1,  242;  285-289,  and  the  following 
inscriptions  quoted  by  him;  C/L,  6,  520,  where  Mercury  is  called  Sotnnio- 
rum  lovis  Nuntius;  8,  2632,  Liber;  8,  4468,  Saturn;  6,  663,  Silvanus; 
14,  2,  Ceres  and  the  Nymphs;  6,  288,  Silvanus;  6,  367,  luppiter  Doliche- 
nus;  3,  1962,  Venus;  10,  1575-1576,  lupiter  O.  M.  Dolichenus;  2,  5521, 
Mater  Deum. 

■2280.  F.  Gruppe,  Ariadne,  Die  Tragische  Kunst  der  Griechen,  623  (Berlin, 
1834):  ".  .  .  -dann  aber  kann  Phrynichus  <i.e.  in  his  Phoenissae> 
auch  den  Traum  der  Konigin  nicht  gehabt  haben,  dieser  aber  scheint 
doch  iiberhaupt  das  Vorkommen  des  Schattens  erst  zu  motiviren.     .     ." 


AESCHYLUS 

.,i;:;Aeschylus,  whose  innovations  in  tragedy  are  well  recognized, 
was  probably  the  first  dramatist  successfully  to  employ  the 
dream./ Through  its  use  he  secures  some  of  his  most  effective 
situations.  /He  recognized,  to  some  extent  at  least,  as  did 
Homer,229  the  psychologic  aspects  of  the  dream./  When,  in  Ag. 
420-426,  he  speaks  of  the  dreams  aroused  by  Menelaus'  long- 
ing for  Helen,  we  must  assume  a  knowledge  on  his  part  of 
the  physical  source  of  the  dream  that  goes  beyond  the  earlier 
explanation  which  bases  the  phenomena  of  the  dream  upon  mere 
mental  receptivity,  passivity.^^o  But  even  here  the  terms  are 
the  terms  used  for  the  external  dream  (S6?at,  o^iq^  as  the  lexicon 
shows).  Still  his  artistic  belief  is,  in  general,  pledged  to  that 
conception  of  the  dream  which  represents  its  origin  as  from  with- 
out, external  to  the  mind  of  the  dreamer.  This  artistic  faith 
he  accepted  from  the  epic  story  together  with  the  myths  which 
he  dramatized,  'slices  from  the  great  banquet  of  Homer',  as  he 
says  in  the  account  of  Athenaeus.^^i 

The  Persae 

In  the  extant  plays  of  Aeschylus  there  are  no  indications  of 
the  growth  of  the  dream  from  a  less  to  a  more  artistic  device. 

229See  the  discussion  of  Iliad,  22,  199  and  Od.  19,  535-581,  supra,  20-22 
and  30-35,  respectively. 

230The  primitive  view  is  that  the  phenomena  actually  appear,  and  are 
not  merely  present  to  the  mind  of  the  dreamer.  The  persons  whom  he 
has  beheld  in  sleep  have  stood  in  very  truth  before  him.  Such  a  theory- 
presupposes  no  more  mental  activity  than  is  required  by  the  receptive 
function  which  it  exercises  for  the  sights  and  sounds  which  meet  the 
waking  mind. 

23iAthenaeus,  8,  347a  (see  Christ,  1,  303  ff.  for  interpretation).  The 
reader  need  not  be  reminded  that  I  refer  here  not  only  to  our  extant 
epics,  the  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey,  but  to  the  supplementary  epics  of  the 
Trojan  Cycle,  to  the  epics  of  Thebes,  and  to  the  epics  of  Argos.  Cf. 
Croiset,  185. 

60 


Aeschylus  61 

In  one  of  his  earliest  and  most  original  dramas  ,^^2  the  Persae  (472 
B.C.),  he  bursts  upon  us  wit  what  I  consider  the  most  impres- 
sive dream  known  to  Hterature,  the  dream  of  Atossa,  mother  of 
Xerxes  (176  ff.).  The  play  deals  with  what  raany  regard  as  the 
most  important  episode  in  the  history  of  the  ancient  world,  the 
contest  of  Oriental  despotism  with  Greek  freedom,  and  the 
victory  of  the  latter  in  the  defeat  of  Xerxes.  On  this  crisis  in 
the  life  of  the  civilized  world,  Aeschylus,  who  had  fought  at 
Marathon  and  in  all  probability  had  seen  the  rout  at  Salamis, 
composes  a  drama  and  elects  to  guide  the  action  of  the  plot  by 
the  introduction  of  a  dream.  The  effect  upon  the  audience  of 
this  dream,  appearing,  as  it  did,  in  a  play  which  portrayed  that 
great  conflict,  must  have  been  stupendous. 

The  situation  leading  up  to  the  episode  of  the  dream  and  the 
story  of  the  vision  are  as  follows:  Atossa  (176  ff.)has  been 
haunted  by  troublesome  dreams  ever  since  her  son's  departure 
forGree.ce.  But  in  the  night  before  the  opening  of  the  play  a 
dream  comes  to  her  which  excelled  all  the  others  in  vividness. 
She  tells  it  to  the  chorus.  'There  seemed  to  appear  before  my 
sight  two  women,  one  in  Persian,  the  other  in  Dorian  attire,  in 
size  surpassing  mortal  women.  Though  sisters,  they  lived 
apart,  one  in  Greece,  the  other  in  barbarian  lands.^^'  They  fell 
into  a  quarrel,  whereupon  Xerxes  yoked   them  to  his  chariot. 

252The  Persae  is  the  only  tragedy  upon  a  historical  subject  which  has 
come  down  to  us  from  the  classical  Greek  period.  In  this,  according  to 
the  notice  of  the  ancient  argument  to  the  play,  attributed  to  the  gram- 
marian Glaucus,  Aeschylus  was  following  the  Phoenissae  of  Phrynichus 
(see  Richter,  81).  However,  as  Ribbeck  {Uber  einige  historische  Dramen 
der  Griechen,  Rheinisches  Museum,  30,  145)  points  out,  no  definite  dividing 
line  was  drawn  between  myth  and  history,  and  the  tendency  was  to  look 
upon  the  tales  which  formed  the  subject  of  tragedy  as  historical,  even  if 
only  remotely  so.     Cf.  further  M.  Patin,  210  f. 

233The  aim  of  the  poet  was  to  bring  to  the  minds  of  his  auditors  in  the 
most  impressive  manner  the  political  and  historical  significance  of  the 
struggle  which  had,  temporarily  at  least,  ended  in  the  great  national 
victories.  The  Persae  was  the  second  of  a  trilogy  dealing  with  this  mighty 
national  conflict;   cf.  Christ,  1,  290. 


62         The  Dream  in  Homer  and  Greek  Tragedy 

The  Persian  willingly  bent  to  her  task,  but  the  Dorian  plunged 
and  broke  the  harness,  dragged  the  chariot  madly  along, 
splintered  the  yoke,  and  threw  Xerxes  to  the  ground.  As  he 
fell,  the  figure  of  his  dead  father,  Darius,  stood  beside  him, 
commiserating  him.  On  seeing  Darius,  Xerxes  rent  his 
clothes' .234 

The  queen  mother's  presaging  fears  of  disaster  to  her  absent 
son  are  increased,  in  the  morning,  as  she  is  offering  the  custom- 
ary sacrifices  to  the  gods  who  avert  the  evils  of  the  night,^^^  by 
the  confirming  omen  of  the  attack  of  the  hawk  upon  the  eagle 
which  flew  for  refuge  to  the  altar  of  Apollo.^^^  The  forebodings 
of  ill  from  this  omen  prepare  the  minds  of  Atossa  and  the  chorus 

^^^Persae,  176-199. 

235201-204.  Purification  after  evil  dreams  or  other  horrors  of  the  night 
is  a  practice  to  which  one  finds  constantly  recurrent  reference  in  both 
Greek  and  Latin  literatures.  The  person  thus  visited  by  the  chthonic 
divinities  had  suffered  pollution  by  that  contact  (for,  as  I  have  stated 
frequently,  the  dream  was  looked  upon  as  an  objective  thing).  Certain 
rites  of  purification  were  to  be  performed  in  the  bright  light  of  day,  cor- 
responding to  those  which  followed  any  sorrow,  ill  news  or  sickness.  These 
rites  took  three  forms:  washing  in  nmning  water,  offering  sacrifices  to 
the  deities  who  avert  evil  {atrbTpotroi  dalfwves),  or  crying  one's  sorrows 
or  visions  to  the  sun;  cf.  the  following  passages:  Sophocles,  EL  86,  401,  420, 
424,  427,  637  ff.,  645;  Euripides,  El.  59;  Iph.  Taur.  42,  43;  Med.  5Q 
(compare  the  parody  by  Philemon,  Athenaeus,  7,  288d);  Aristophanes, 
Frogs,  1338  and  scholium;  Theophrastus,  Char.  16,  11;  ApoUonius 
Rhodius,  4,  660-662;  668-669;  Plautus,  Mil.  Glor.  394;  Merc.  3-5; 
Ennius,  Med.,  in  Cicero,  Tusc.  Disp.  3,  26,  63;  Vergil,  Culex,  380;  Aen. 
3,  147  ff.;  8,  68-69;  Propertius,  3,  8,  11;  3,  10,  13;  4,  4,  24;  Plutarch, 
De  Super  St.  166a;  Persius,  2,  15-16;  Statius,  Theh.  9,  573;  601;  Juvenal, 
6,  522;  Martial,  11,  50;  Valerius  Flaccus,  5,  332;  the  scholiast  on  Soph. 
£/ec.  424:   see  infra,  80;  91. 

23^205-214.  The  use  of  the  eagle  and  the  hawk  here  may  find  its  source 
in  Penelope's  dream  about  the  eagle  and  the  geese,  Od.  19,  535-581,  or 
in  the  dove  and  the  hawk  portent  of  Od.  15,  525  ff .  In  Od.  19  the  allegori- 
cal, obscure  part  of  the  dream  is  interpreted  by  the  eagle,  which  declared 
itself  Odysseus  (supra,  30  ff.);  here  the  obscure  visions  of  the  night  are 
confirmed  by  the  omen. 


Aeschylus  63 

for  the  messenger  of  disaster  who  enters  at  line  249^37  and  tells 
the  famous  tale  of  Salamis  and  Xerxes'  retreat.^^^  But  the 
future  is  on  the  knees  of  the  gods,  and,  since  Darius  appeared  in 
the  dream  commiserating  his  son,  his  spirit  may  yet  turn  ill  to 
good.  So  the  chorus  calls  upon  his  soul  to  arise,  and  in  answer 
to  its  libations  and  prayers  the  ghost  of  Darius  appears  (681  ff.). 
With  warnings  and  explanations  Darius  bids  Atossa  prepare  for 
the  immediate  return  of  Xerxes,  and  then  descends  beneath  the 
earth  (842).  Xerxes  enters  at  907  and  the  play  ends  with  an 
amoebaeaa.  lament  between  the  Great  King  and  the  chorus 
over  the  disaster  which  has  befallen  the  barbarian  arms. 

The  importance  of  this  dream  for  the  unfolding  of  the  story 
can  be  seen  from  this  outline.  As  has  been  pointed  out  by  the 
editors,239  it  dominates  the  economy  of  the  tragedy.  It  may  not 
be  the  most  beautiful  dream  in  Greek  literature,^'^®  but  certainly 
it  is  the  most  impelling.  The  artistic  portrayal  of  the  supreme 
crisis  of  classical  history  finds  the  chief  source  of  its  action  in 
a  dream.  This  is  the  more  notable  and  the  more  important 
from  the  standpoint  of  technique  when  one  recalls  that  the 
Persae  is  the  earliest  Greek  tragedy  which  we  can  exactly 
date  (472  B.  C.),^*^  that  it  is  the  only  extant  Greek  tragedy 
on  a  historical  subject,^^^  ^nd  that  the  introduction  of  the 
dream  motif  was  probably  optional  with  the  author.^    Such 

2"In  lines  518-519  the  queen  expresses  her  realization  of  the  fact  that 
the  dreax..  Lad  foretold  the  news  of  the  messenger. 

*38353-471.  The  dream  also  motivates  the  appearance  of  Darius, 
a  scene  which  that  discriminating  critic  Richter,  99,  has  rated  so  highly 
for  dramatic  effectiveness. 

«"Cf.  Richter,  89.  See  Wilamowitz's  statement  of  the  importance  of 
this  dream.  Die  Perser  des  Aischylos,  Hermes,  32,  386. 

*"That  palm  goes  to  the  dream  in  the  Iph.  Taur. ;  see  infra,  91-96. 

"iChrist,  1,  290.  ^*^Ci.  supra,  61,  n.  232. 

««W.  Nestle,  Die  Weltanschauung  des  Aischylos,  Neue  JahrbUcher  fUr 
d.  k.  Alt.  19,  331,  suggests  that  Aeschylus  may  have  based  his  Persian 
material  upon  Dionysius  of  Miletus,  one  of  the  early  logographers,  who 
wrote  UepffiKd  in  the  Ionic  dialect  (Christ,  1,  453).  There  are  only  two 
short  fragments  of  this  work  of  Dionysius,  however;  so  the  evidence 
either  way  is  unsatisfactory,  as  Nestle  frankly  admits. 


64         The  Dream  in  Homer  and  Greek  Tragedy 

is  the  importance  of  the  dream  in  its  larger  literary  historical 
aspects. 

For  its  influence  on  the  plot  of  the  Persae  it  finds  its  model  in 
the  dreams  of  Iliad  2,^^^*  and  Odyssey  6.^^^  But  the  importance 
of  the  dream  in  the  Persae  as  an  essential  element  of  the  plot, 
the  directing  principle  of  the  action,  is  much  greater  than  in 
either  of  the  two  epics.  The  growth  is  natural  enough.  In  the 
drama  more  than  in  any  other  literary  genre  all  that  is  intro- 
duced must  contribute  to  the  plot ;  and  so  this  epic  germ  it  was 
the  pleasure  of  tragedy  to  develop  and  to  augment  and  to  pass  on 
to  literary  successors,  until  in  the  poems  of  a  later  period  we  often 
find  the  whole  plot  closely  knit  together  by  means  of  cross- 
references,  backward  and  forward,  to  the  dream.^"*^ 

The  dream  in  the  Persae  belongs  to  the  allegorical  type,  in 
this  feature  following  Penelope's  dream  about  the  geese.^^^  But 
the  symbolism  is  so  patent  as  to  be  easily  understood  by  the 
chorus  of  graybeards  and  by  Atossa.^^^  It  requires  no  Joseph.^^^ 
At  the  same  time,  it  shows  an  advance  in  technique  on  the 
Homeric  form  of  allegorical  dream.  It  will  be  recalled  that  the 
epic  poet,  alarmed,  perhaps,  at  the  boldness  of  his  innovation, 
enclosed  within  the  limits  of  the  allegorical  dream  its  own 
interpretation. 2^°  Aeschylus  does  not  follow  so  primitive  a 
plan,  but  he  does  make  his  figurative  language  so  plain  as  to  be 
unmistakable  to  an  audience  unfamiliar,  we  may  assume,  with 

2*4Supra,  2-9. 

2«Supra,  28-30. 

2«Compare,  e.g.,  Vergil,  Aen.  2,  270-297;  2,  771-794;  3,  147-172; 
4,  351ff.;  4,554-572;  5,721-740;  6,695-697;  7,  85ff.;  8,26-65. 

2«0rf.  19,  535-581;  infra,  30-46. 
2«215_231. 

**'Artemidorus,  Onir.  (ed.  Hercher),  3,  18,  has  a  ready  explanation  for 
such  dreams,  probably  drawn  from  this  passage;  it  is  well  known  that 
Artemidorus  was  an  admirer  of  Aeschylus.  They  indicate,  he  says, 
slavery,  trouble  and  sickness,  particularly  if  the  dreamer  is  famous  or  of 
gentle  breeding! 

«°Supra,  30. 


Aeschylus  65 

the  allegorical  dream  in  tragedy.  For  though  the  poet's 
representation  of  Europe  and  Asia  under  the  form  of  women^" 
is  the  earHest  use  of  this  personification  with  which  the  extant 
literature  acquaints  us,  nevertheless  no  one  of  the  audience 
could  fail  to  grasp  the  import  of  the  figure.  By  this  device 
Aeschylus  wished  to  put  vividly  before  the  Athenians  the 
magnitude  and  meaning  of  the  struggle  with  the  Persian.  He 
could  not  afford  to  leave  his  meaning  obscured.  The  content  of 
the  dream,  hereafter,  is  for  tragedy  usually  allegorical. ^^^ 

The  vision  is  sent  to  a  woman,  a  practice  already  followed  in 
the  Odyssey  and  later  conventionalized  in  Greek  tragedy.^^' 
It  persisted  long,  appearing  in  numerous  plays  of  the  Renais- 
sance. The  sender  of  the  dream  is  not  mentioned,  but  the  con- 
nection of  the  anxious  ghost  of  Darius  with  the  message  of  the 
dream  may  be  noted. ^^  This  appearance  of  the  dead  king  in  a 
dream  also  has  its  prototype  in  Homer.  The  starting  point,  as 
I  have  said  above,^^^  for  the  appearance  of  the  dead  in  dreams  in 
European  literature  is  the  scene  in  Iliad  23,^^^  in  which  the  ghost 
of  Patroclus  appears  to  Achilles.  But  the  situations  are  essen- 
tially different.     Patroclus'  ghost  came  to  demand  burial.^ 

2"See  the  scholiast's  comment  on  line  184  (O.  Dahnhardt,  Scholia  in 
Aeschyli  Persas,  Leipzig,  1894). 

262In  Choe.  525-550,  Clytaemestra  dreams  that  she  was  delivered  of  a 
serpent;  in  Sophocles,  Elect.  417  J0f.,  she  dreams  that  Agamemnon  returns 
to  earth  and  snatches  from  the  hand  of  Aegisthus  his  scepter,  which  there- 
upon grows  till  the  whole  land  of  Mycenae  is  overshadowed;  in  Euripides, 
Iph.  Taur.  42  ff.,  Iphigenia  dreams  of  an  earthquake  that  leaves  standing 
but  one  pillar  of  her  ancestral  mansion,  a  pillar  that  symbolizes  Orestes; 
in  Hec.  90  fl.,  Hecuba  dreams  of  the  hind  torn  by  the  wolf;  in  Rhesus, 
780-788,  we  have  the  charioteer's  dream  of  the  wolves  and  the  horses  of 
Rhesus. 

*wFor  the  practice  in  the  Odyssey,  see  pp.  27  ff.;  for  the  convention  in 
tragedy,  cf.  Staehlin,  171,  n.  1;   215  and  215,  n.  3. 

2M184  ff . 

»«aPages  12-13. 

2»23,  62-107. 

»«Cf.  line  71.     See  infra,  75. 


66  The  Dream  in  Homer  and  Greek  Tragedy 

Darius  was  in  need  of  no  such  rites.  Hence  the  parallel  be- 
tween the  two  dreams  lies  entirely  in  the  idea  of  the  dead  ap- 
pearing in  a  dream.  A  much  closer  approximation  to  the  Ho- 
meric situation  is  found  in  Pindar,  Pyth.  4,  163,  where  Phrixus 
appears  to  Pelias  and  requests  an  dvaxXr^ctq,  the  'laying'  of 
his  soul,^^^  a  request  differing  little  from  that  of  Patroclus. 

The  Prometheus  Vinctus 

In  the  Prometheus  Vinctus  the  dream  plays  a  secondary,  but 
still  highly  important  part  in  the  economy  of  the  tragedy  by 
aiding  in  the  motivation  of  the  meeting  of  the  hero  and  lo.  A 
low  estimate  has  been  put  upon  this  incident  by  some  scholars,^^ 
but  such  an  estimate  misses  the  whole  point  of  the  structure  of 
the  play  and  is  based  upon  a  wrong  conception  of  Aeschylus' 
dramatic  technique.  He  was,  as  Croiset  well  says,^^^  prone  to 
introduce  into  his  plays  rdles  of  the  second  or  even  of  the  third 
order,  not  only  to  assist  in  the  evolution  of  the  plot,  but  also  to 
emphasize  the  principal  r61e  and  to  aid  in  developing  and  in 
refining  it.  Particularly  is  this  true  in  the  Prometheus  of  the 
rdles  of  Hephaestus,  Oceanus,  the  Oceanides,  and  lo.  The 
incidents  connected  with  these  characters  emphasize  the  r61e  of 
Prometheus,  and  help  us  better  to  understand  him.  In  the 
long  lo  episode,  covering  over  400  lines,^®'^  the  attitude  of 
Prometheus  to  the  immortals,  the  mainspring  of  the  legend,  and 
the  indomitable  will  of  this  benefactor  of  mankind  are  depicted 
by  the  conversation  of  Prometheus  and  lo.     In  proportion  as  a 

257As  I  have  noted  above  (notes  63  and  203;  see  the  references  there), 
the  connection  of  the  dead  with  the  sending  of  dreams,  spooks,  spirits, 
is  primitive  and  widespread.  To  these  dead,  as  to  the  chthonic  divinities 
in  general,  gifts  were  offered,  to  appease  them,  for  the  activities  of  the 
dead  were  universally  looked  upon  as  harmful,  not  as  beneficent.  The 
offerings  were  the  toll  of  fear  and  not  the  promptings  of  affection. 

2"Richter,  56  ff.,  belittles  it;  Christ,  1,  295,  misunderstands  it;  Weil, 
33  ff .,  rescues  it — and  similar  scenes — from  the  strictures  of  Richter. 

"B193. 

'«°More  than  one  third  of  the  entire  play. 


Aeschylus  67 

knowledge  of  these  factors  is  necessary  to  the  working  out  of  the 
play,  so  indispensable  will  the  device  appear  which  brings  this 
knowledge  before  the  audience. 

I  give  now  a  synopsis  of  the  passage,  to  show  the  connection 
of  the  dream  with  the  plot .  lo,  when  driven  forth  by  her  father, 
Inachus,  meets  Prometheus  (669  ff.)-  Her  oft-repeated  dreams 
(645  ff.)  moved  her  father  to  consult  Pytho  and  Dodona  and  it 
was  in  obedience  to  an  oracle  of  Loxias  that  the  saddened  Inachus 
forced  his  daughter  from  her  home.  In  the  wanderings  conse- 
quent upon  the  warnings  of  dream  and  oracle  lo  meets  Prome- 
theus, and  the  conversation  which  ensues  reveals,  more  than 
any  other  single  factor  in  the  play,  the  character  of  Prometheus 
and  his  feelings  toward  his  arch-enemy  Zeus.^^^ 

The  indefiniteness  of  dream  messages  and  the  uncertainties 
of  dream  interpretation  contrasted  with  the  comparatively 
greater  clarity  and  definiteness  of  the  oracle  prevent  the  former 
from  attaining  an  equal  significance  with  the  latter  in  relation 
to  the  plot.  But  one  of  its  most  frequently  recurring  functions 
is,  as  in  Atossa's  dream  in  the  Persae^^^  or  in  lo's  dream  here,  to 
prepare-the-:wayior  an  omen  or  an  oracle  upon  which  the  action 
may  be  saf elyjbase  J  This~conlbinatioirc)f 'dream  and  omen  or 
of  dream  and  oracle  is  found  nowhere  in  the  Iliad  or  the  Odyssey. 
Aeschylus,  or  whatever  writers  preceded  him,^^    has  to  this 

2«Weil,  33-35. 

^^^Persae,  176  ff.;  supra,  60-66.  In  the  Persae  the  portent  has  at  least 
as  great  a  degree  of  certainty  as  is  usually  predicated  of  the  ambiguous 
oracle. 

2831  am  convinced  of  some  partial  interdependence,  at  least,  between  the 
dreams  in  the  Prom.  Vine,  the  Persae,  and  Pindar,  Pyth.  4,  163.  The 
chronological  relations  of  Aeschylus  and  Pindar  are  hard  to  establish. 
There  is  much  in  the  literary  activity  of  the  one  which  parallels  the  literary 
activity  of  the  other.  Their  paths  in  life  would  appear  to  have  crossed 
frequently.  The  question  is  one  of  the  priority  of  the  Prometheus  or  of 
the  fourth  Pythian.  Each  shows  a  development  and  refinement  of  the 
type  of  dream  found  in  the  Persae.  The  question  is:  Was  the  dream  of 
the  P.  V.  modeled  on  that  of  the  fourth  Pythian,  or  did  the  latter  appear 
first?  I  have  devoted  some  time  to  these  interrelations,  but  have  not  yet 
reached  any  conclusions  which  seem  to  me  wholly  convincing. 


68  The  Dream  in  Homer  and  Greek  Tragedy 

extent  improved  and  added  to  the  dream  device.  This  change 
may  have  been  brought  about,  partially  at  least,  to  conform  to  a 
more  sophisticated  view  of  the  nature  of  the  psychic  processes 
involved  ;^^^  but,  as  I  shall  have  occasion  frequently  to  repeat, 
this  factor  is  of  small  moment.  The  determining  consideration 
was  the  developing  and  refining  of  literary  devices  which  were 
already  in  use  in  other  poetry.  This  change  is  natural  in  view 
of  the  different  conditions  in  the  dramatic  vehicle.  In  the  epic 
the  god  can  be  pictured  fashioning  and  sending  a  dream  phan- 
tom, a  being  whose  message  will  compel  immediate  credence 
because  its  source  is  visibly  shown  to  the  reader.  One  can 
hardly  expect  a  like  method  in  tragedy.  The  story  of  the  dream 
can  come  only  from  the  lips  of  the  dreamer,264a  and  this  fact 
introduces  that  element  of  uncertainty  about  the  vision  (an 
uncertainty  lacking  in  the  epic)  which  must  be  confirmed  by  the 
direct  omen.  This  latter  has  much  of  the  immediate  connection 
with  deity  which  can  be  expressed  in  the  body  of  the  dream 
itself  in  the  epic. 

lo  does  not  name  the  sender  of  the  dreams  nor  does  she  tell 
the  form  in  which  the  speaker  addressed  her.  The  reader  might 
infer  that  Zeus,  as  the  divinity  interested,  sent  the  visions  of  the 
night;  but  this  is  nowhere  stated.^^^  lo  merely  tells  us  that 
dreams  by  night  announce  that  Zeus  desires  her  as  a  mistress 

26*Cf.  P.  F.  448-449;  485-486;  ^g.  274;  491;  980-981.  These  refer- 
ences recur  frequently.  Where  the  poet  was  talking  out  of  his  rdle, 
that  is,  where  he  was  not  composing  an  artistic  dream  (for  the  models 
of  such  a  dream  he  would  be  dependent  upon  literary  sources) ,  but  talking 
off-hand  and  permitting  an  unimportant  side  glance  at  the  phenomena 
of  the  dream  to  creep  in  by  way  of  illustration,  he  shows  us  that  he  had 
made  fairly  accurate  observations  of  the  apparent  phenomena  of  dreams. 
To  no  such  extent  is  a  similar  knowledge  shown  in  the  epic.  The  great 
defect  in  the  work  of  Hey  and  others  lies  in  the  assumption  that  the  poet's 
scientific  explanations  of  dream  phenomena  in  real  life  do  not  go  beyond 
the  evident  theory  of  the  dreams,  which  he  employs  for  literary  ends. 

264apQj.  a,  more  elaborate  device  see  infra,  74  ff .  and  the  notes  there. 

2^*The  speaking  oaks  of  Dodona  address  her  as  the  bride  of  Zeus,  829- 
836. 


Aeschylus  69 

and  demand  that  she  comply  with  the  god's  wishes  (645  ff.)- 
Harassed  by  their  repeated  visits  she  finally  informs  her  sire 
about  them,  and  he  sends  frequent  messengers  to  Pytho  and 
Dodona.  But  of  the  two  it  is  the  oracle  of  Loxias  (669)  which 
clearly  interprets  the  dream,  charging  Inachus  to  thrust  his 
daughter  from  her  home  and  country,  under  threat  of  destruc- 
tion to  his  whole  family  by  the  thunderbolt  of  Zeus  if  he  does 
not  obey .2^^  Hence  one  cannot  assert  from  any  information  given 
in  the  text  that  Zeus  sends  the  dream,  since  he  permits  the 
oracle  of  Apollo  to  interpret  the  vision,  while  Dodona  refuses  to 
divulge  any  information. 

The  epic  dream  is,  as  a  rule,  definitely  assigned  to  some 
divinity,  but  it  will  be  remembered  that  the  single  allegorical 
dream  of  Penelope  was  not,  nor  was  the  appearance  of  the  ghost 
of  Patroclus.26^  Definite  information  as  to  the  source  of  the 
dream  in  the  tragedy  will  generally  be  lacking,  a  situation  arising 
from  the  limitations  of  this  department  of  literature,  to  which 
attention  has  been  called  above.^^^ 

The  dream  in  the  Prometheus  is  conceived  in  the  epic  form  to 
the  extent  of  being  represented  as  external  in  origin,  but  it  is 
not  further  personified.  For  in  just  what  outward  appearance 
the  'visions  of  the  night'  (645)  visit  lo  she  does  not  declare.  But 
the  message  which  they  speak  in  lines  647-654  is  such  an  address 
as  would  come  from  the  Hps  of  a  daimon  or  a  god  or  some  e'^BwXov 
that  heaven  might  fashion.  It  will  be  noticed  that  the  dream 
is  not  allegorical  in  the  sense  that  Penelope's  dream  about  the 
geese  is.^^a  There  the  prophecy  of  the  future  is  told  in  symbols. 
Here  the  desire  of  Zeus  and  his  orders  to  lo  are  explicit  and  are 
expressed  without  the  use  of  tropes.     The  need  of  explanation 

«6For  the  account  of  the  dreams  and  the  questioning  of  the  oracle, 
Acusilaus  (a  logographer  of  Argos  [see  Christ,  1,  453])  might  have  been 
used;   cf.  Nestle,  331. 

2«7For  the  power  of  the  dead  to  send  up  dreams,  see  supra,  nn.  62,203, 
and  257. 

"»0J.  535-581 ;    supra,  30  J^ 


70         The  Dream  in  Homer  and  Greek  Tragedy 

arises  from  two  sources:  first,  the  characters  of  the  play  are 
unable  to  believe  the  divine  communication  though  it  is  of  itself 
unambiguous ;  secondly,  even  if  this  credence  were  gained,  the 
action  ensuing  upon  it  would  not  find  favor  with  an  unprepared 
audience.  The  poet  must  satisfy  by  some  dramaturgic  device 
familiar  to  his  hearers  the  need  for  an  explanation  felt  by  the 
persons  of  the  play  or  by  his  audience.  The  demand  for  oracular 
confirmation,  then,  comes  from  the  source  I  have  indicated,  to 
wit,  the  department  of  literature  in  which  the  poet  is  writing. 
The  consultation  of  the  oracles  and  the  reply  of  Apollo  act  as 
the  dramaturgic  substitute  for  the  divine  machinery  which  the 
epic  poet  is  permitted  to  show  to  his  hearers  or  readers.  The 
epic  poet  can  gain  belief  for  his  dream  by  portraying  Zeus  in  the 
act  of  sending  "Ovstpoq  to  Agamemnon, 2"^°  Athene  dispatching 
Iphthime  to  Penelope, ^^^  or  going  in  person  (though  disguised  as 
the  daughter  of  Dymas)  to  Nausicaa.^^^  To  the  dramatic  poet 
this  door  is  barred.  He  must  gain  entrance  to  his  hearers* 
belief  through  some  equivalent  for  the  Homeric  machinery  with 
which  they  are  familiar.  This  he  finds  in  the  confirming  oracle 
or  omen.  We  shall  see  Aeschylus  solving  this  problem  in  dif- 
ferent ways  in  other  plays. 

The  Choephori 

The  Libation  Bearers  come  to  Agamemnon's  tomb,  sent  to 
expiate  a  dream-terror  ^73  which  had  visited  Clytaemestra. 
Aeschylus'  description  in  verses  32-36  gives  unearthly  weirdness 

^^^Iliad,  2,  1-47.  ^"^^Od.  4,  787-841.  '"'^^Od.  6,  13-51. 

"'Line  32.  If  one  reads  <5/9^6^pi^  06j3os  /crX.;  see  Weil's  Praefatio,  LIII. 
If  one  reads  4>o?/3os  with  M,  which  Wecklein  (ed.  Berlin,  1885)  adopts, 
Apollo,  instead  of  the  murdered  king,  is  the  sender  of  the  dream;  but  cf. 
929.  The  reading  06j3os  seems  to  be  supported  by  the  interpretation 
of  the  Kpiral,  38-41;  see  infra,  71.  A.  W.  Verrall,  The  Choephori 
(London,  1893),  reads  0o?/3os  and  interprets  it  as  a  generic  term,  'an 
inspiring  power',  suggesting  that  the  0ot/3os  of  Delphi,  the  inspiring 
power  of  Delphi,  was  later  identified  with  Apollo.  Cf.  Verrall's  note  on 
this  passage  and  Appendix,  1,2. 


Aeschylus  71 

to  this  dream-terror  as  it  shrieks  aloud  in  the  depths  of  night 
from  the  women's  quarters.  In  this  description  the  poet  would 
seem  to  wish  to  emphasize  the  external  source  of  the  dream, 
though  the  dream  required  interpretation.  He  shows  us  both 
sides  of  the  shield:  in  these  lines,  32-36,  the  features  of  the 
dream  as  it  affects  others  appear;  in  lines  526  ff.  we  have  the 
dream  pictiire  as  Clytaemestra  saw  it.  The  arrival  of  the 
maidens  at  the  tomb  causes  the  discovery  of  the  lock  of  hair  and 
the  footprints  and  the  restdtant  recognition  scene  between 
Electra  and  Orestes.  Orestes  announces  that  he  has  come  to 
avenge  his  father  in  answer  to  an  oracle  of  Apollo.  When  he 
expresses  his  desire  to  know  why  the  offerings  are  being  sent  to 
Agamemnon's  tomb,  Orestes  learns  the  story  of  Clytae- 
mestra's  dream  (526  ff.) :  she  had  dreamt  that  she  was  delivered 
of  a  serpent;  when  she  gave  it  the  breast,  it  drew  in  blood  with 
her  milk;  thereupon  Clytaemestra  awoke  from  sleep,  screaming. 
The  xptTaf  ts  twvS'  dvetpaxwv  (37)  interpret  the  dream  bitterly 
enough  for  the  guilty  woman,  'that  the  dead  beneath  the  earth 
were  complaining  against  the  slayers'  (38-4 1),^^^  but  they  keep 
the  interpretation  to  general  terms  and  make  no  reference  to 
Orestes  as  avenger.^^^  The  queen  sends  gifts  to  pacify  the  angry 
spirit  of  Agamemnon.  When  the  chorus  has  finished  the  telling, 
Orestes  immediately  prays  to  earth  and  to  his  father's  grave 
that  the  dream  may  be  fulfilled  in  him.  He  then  interprets  the 
dream  and  applies  it  to  himself:  he  is  the  serpent  which  Clytae- 
mestra has  suckled  (540-549).  He  declares  that  he  will  be 
the  slayer  of  his  mother  (549-550) : 

ixSpaxovTa)6el<;  S'  iftii 
XTSVW  viv,  ^q  Touvetpov  ^vv^xet  T6Se. 

"^That  is,  from  the  standpoint  of  the  interpreters  the  dream  was  sent 
not  by  a  god  but  by  the  murdered  husband.     Cf.  supra,  70,  n.  273. 

""Aeschylus  may  have  intentionally  suspended  any  more  definite 
interpretation  of  the  dream  at  this  point  so  as  not  to  weaken  by  anticipa- 
tion the  very  artistic  and  highly  effective  passage  where  Orestes  identifies 
himself  with  the  serpent,  542-550. 


72         The  Dream  in  Homer  and  Greek  Tragedy 

The  chorus  accepts  his  interpretation  and  promises  him  its  aid 
(551  ff .) .  Clytaemestra  also,  when  she  finds  her  son  determined 
upon  her  destruction,  reaUzes  that  Orestes  is  the  serpent  of 
whom  she  had  dreamed  (928),  and  he  confirms  her  fears. 

The  oracle  of  Loxias  is  the  source  of  the  main  outline  of  the 
plot  throughout  the  trilogy  to  which  the  Choephori  belongs,  and 
especially  in  this  play^^^  maintains  that  headship  as  conductor  of 
the  action  to  which  I  have  called  attention  above  as  one  of  the 
principal  functions  of  the  oracle  in  tragedy.^^^  The  dream, 
here  again,  is  less  ambitious,  but  of  closely  secondary  impor- 
tance, as  the  foregoing  synopsis  shows.  It  sends  forth  the 
Libation  Bearers  to  the  tomb,  causing  the  meeting  of  Electra 
and  her  brother  and  bringing  about  the  famous  anagnorisis, 
and  in  addition  it  strengthens  Orestes  in  his  determination  to 
kill  his  mother. 

f^      This  dream  is  very  effectively  employed  to  produce  suspense. 

'  It  is  first  mentioned  in  line  32,  but  it  is  not  told  in  detail  till  line 
526.  Its  shadow  is  over  the  whole  play.  It  enters  among  the 
earliest  lines  and  is  the  last  word  on  Clytaemestra's  lips  as  her 
son  takes  her  within  to  slay  her  (928).  It  blocks  the  tender 
appeal  which  the  queen  makes  to  the  day  when,  a  toothless 
child,  Orestes  was  nursed  at  her  breast  (896  ff.).  It  gives  an 
atmosphere  of  foreboding  and  foreshadowed  disaster.     In  such 

^auxiliary  functions  the  dream  is  very  significant. 

In  technique,  this  dream  too  is  in  the  class  with  Penelope's 
dream  in  that  it  is  allegorical  and  so  requires  interpretation  to 
make  its  import  clear  to  the  audience.  In  the  Persae  the  poet 
uses  symbolism  so  patent  as  to  require  no  Oedipus  and,  to  guard 
further  against  misinterpretation,  confirms  its  meaning  by  the 
omen  of  the  hawk  and  the  eagle. ^^^  In  the  Prometheus  the  clear 
injunction  of  the  oracle  makes  it  impossible  to  apprehend 
wrongly  the  essence  of  the  dream.^^*  Here  the  poet  handles  the 
interpretation  with  increased  dexterity :  first,  the  errand  of  the 

'"Cf.  the  references  to  the  sources  of  the  action  in  the  oracle,  558-560, 
900,  940,  953,  1029. 

2«asupra,  59.  "Tgupra,  62.  ^^^Supra,  67. 


Aeschylus  73 

chorus  to  the  tomb  suggests  the  intent  of  the  dream;  then  the 
*  interpreters  of  dreams '  hint  broadly,  but  in  general  terms,  that 
those  beneath  the  earth  (i.  e.  Agamemnon)  are  complaining 
(37  ff.);  Orestes  gives  a  full  and  confident  interpretation 
(540  ff.);  the  chorus  accepts  his  reading  of  the  dream  and 
piously  prays  that  it  may  come  to  pass.^'^  The  climax  in  this 
confirmation  is  reached  when  the  queen  realizes  that  Orestes 
has  come  as  the  serpent  to  slay  her  (928) :  oT ' yd)  Tsxouaa  i:6vS'  8<j)iv 
^0pe(|;i(jLYjv,  and  the  son  replies  (929-930) : 

•^  xapTa  [kdyztq  o6?  dvsipaxwv  ^6^oq. 
Ixavsq  ov  oO  xpriVy  xai  t6  [lAi  xP^^v  xa0e. 

This  handling  of  the  interpretation  far  surpasses  in  refinement  of 
workmanship  that  of  any  other  dream  in  Aeschylus. 

The  introduction  of  the  serpent  is  noteworthy.  Stesichorus, 
according  to  a  fragment  of  his  Oresteia,  preserved  by  Plutarch,**® 
had  already  introduced  a  serpent  in  a  dream,  but  he  had  identi- 
fied the  serpent  with  the  dead  Agamemnon  instead  of  with 
Orestes.  In  this  version  of  Stesichorus  we  see  the  older  concep- 
tion that  the  serpent  is  the  soul  of  the  dead  man.^^^  Staehlin^^ 
thinks  that  Aeschylus  has  contaminated  two  primitive  ideas: 
according  to  a  widespread  belief  serpents  drank  milk  and  would 
draw  nourishment  even  from  the  himian  breast  j^^    to  this 

"•rcpacTK^TTOj  5^  ruvdi  <r'  alpovfiai  iripi^  yivoiro  5'  oCtwj  (551-552). 

"ODe  Sera  Num.  Vind.  10  (Bergk,  42).  For  the  Greek  of  the  Stesichorus 
fragment  see  infra,  83. 

"iSee  Frazer,  Adonis,  Attis,  and  Osiris,  153  (London,  1907);  Frazer, 
Pausanias,  3,  65  ff.;  5,  44-45;  Frazer,  Totemism  and  Exogamy  (London, 
1910),  Index,  s.  v.  Snake;  Frazer,  Golden  Bough,  Index,  s.  v.  Snakes; 
Rohde,  1,  133;  1,  196;  Jane  E.  Harrison,  Prolegomena  to  the  Study  of 
Greek  Religion,  217,  233,  301,  306,  326,  392,  418,  535  (London,  1903). 
and  Journal  of  Hellenic  Studies,  19,  204;  223;  J.  B.  Deane,  Worship  of 
the  Serpent,  245  ff.  (London,  1830). 

»8236-37. 

«83He  cites  Olbrich,  Mitteilungen  der  Schlesischen  Gesellschaft  fur  Volks- 
kunde,  3,  41  ff.;  4,  67  ff.;   Usener,  Milch  und  Honig,  Rhein.  Mus.  57, 177  ff. 


74         The  Dream  in  Homer  and  Greek  Tragedy 

Aeschylus  adds  a  vampire  belief,  already  current  in  Eastern 
Europe,  a  belief  in  the  existence  of  a  being,  generally  supposed  to 
be  the  soul  of  a  dead  man,  which  sucks  by  night  the  blood  of 
living  persons.^^  In  the  Eumenides  Apollo  distinctly  speaks  of 
the  vampire-like  qualities  of  the  Furies.^^^ 

The  sender  to  whom  we  are  to  ascribe  the  dream  in  the 
Choephori  is  not  mentioned  specifically  (unless  we  follow  Weck- 
lein  and  read,  with  the  Codex  Mediceus,  ^ol^oq,  in  32),  but  the 
inference  is  that  the  soul  of  the  dead  sent  up  the  dreamr;::::the 
ancient  view.^^^  '  ^        ^  ''~'^'' 

The  Eumenides 

The  boldest  use  of  the  dream  device  is  in  the  Eumenides  .^^"^ 
There  Aeschylus  out-Homers  Homer  in  emphasizing  the 
objectivity  of  the  dream.  The  Furies  are  disclosed  asleep  upon 
the  stage  and  dreaming.  Aeschylus  has  a  living  actor  portray 
their  dream.^^^  This  actor  enters  in  the  role  of  the  ghost  of 
Clytaemestra  and  for  forty-five  lines^^^  addresses  a  rebuke  to  the 
sleeping  Furies  because  they  have  allowed  their  ardor  in  the 
pursuit  of  Orestes  to  abate.  This  rebuke  is  the  dream.  The 
theatrical  effectiveness  of  such  a  visual  representation  is  self- 
evident.  The  extent  to  which  this  scene  has  been  imitated 
confirms  this  feeling.     It  was  copied   by    Euripides    in    his 

'"The  belief  in  vampires  is,  at  the  present  time,  largely  confined  to 
Slavonic  countries  and  those  lands  in  which  the  Slav  has  settled — Russia, 
Poland,  Servia,  Albania,  Greece  and  Slavonic  Austria.  The  vampire  is 
generally  supposed  to  be  the  soul  of  a  witch,  or  of  a  suicide,  or  of  someone 
who  has  met  a  violent  death  (in  this  case  the  murdered  Agamemnon). 

385183-184. 

386Sophocles,  in  the  Electra,  who  borrows  the  dream  from  the  Choephori, 
makes  Electra  declare  pointedly  that  the  dead  Agamemnon  sent  the  dream, 
459-460;  cf.  also  nn.  63,  203,  257  and  323. 

"^94  ff. 

288Cf.  116,  tvap  yoLp  v/xdi  vvv  EXvTain'^ffTpa  koXQ;    i.e.  "Als  Traumbild 
mahne  ich  euch,  ich,  Klytamnestra",  Richter,  222. 
28994-139. 


Aeschylus  75 

Hecuha,'^^^  axid  in  the  tragedy  Octavia^^^  written  in  the  early  Em- 
pire; on  the  contemporary  stage  it  has  had  immense  vogue.*** 
Its  effectiveness  on  the  stage  explains  sufficiently  why  Aeschylus 
chose  to  cast  the  dream  in  the  external,  objective  form.  One 
attempts,  of  course,  to  draw  no  conclusions  from  the  type  of 
dream  here  employed  as  to  the  poet's  philosophic  beliefs  con- 
cerning the  origin  of  dream  phenomena. 

In  regard  to  artistic  philosophical  background  the  dream  in 
the  Eumenides  belongs  with  the  dream  in  which  Patroclus 
appeared  to  Achilles  '?^  the  return  of  the  ghost  of  Clytaemestra 
to  demand  vengeance  is  of  a  type  with  the  return  of  the  soul  of 
Patroclus,  to  demand  burial.  Both  conceptions  find  their 
basis  in  folk-beliefs,^^*  but  the  artistic  prototype  of  the  dream 
in  the  Eumenides  is  the  description  of  the  return  of  Patroclus  in 
the  epic. 

As  a  factor  in  outlining  the  plot  of  the  Eumenides  the  dream 
assumes  considerable  importance.  It  is  the  propelling  force 
behind  the  action  of  the  Furies.  While  they  sleep,  they  have 
let  their  prey  escape  them,  spirited  off  by  Apollo.  The  dream 
awakes  them  and  sends  them  out  again  to  overtake  the  matri- 
cide. One  of  the  Sisters  plainly  states  (155-161)  that  it  is  the 
ghost  of  Clytaemestra  which  arouses  them  again  to  pursue 
Orestes. 

The  necessity  for  this  pursuit  and  the  consequent  importance 
of  the  dream  which  motivates  it,  Wilamowitz  has  shown.^*^    He 

"053;  69-89. 

"^Incerti  Octavia,  593-645  (ed.  Peiper  and  Richter,  Leipzig,  1902), 
the  ghost  of  Agrippina  appears  to  Poppaea,  and  this  appearance  the  latter 
relates  as  her  evil  dream  in  lines  721-734. 

292Sheridan's  The  Critic,  Shaw's  Fanny's  First  Play,  the  play  within  a 
play,  are  all  essentially  descendents,  however  remote,  of  this  idea. 

*^Uliad,  23,  62-107;   supra,  12-20. 

'"This  conception  pictured  the  Ara^ot,  Awpot,  /Siato^dvarot,  as  wandering 
restlessly  about  this  side  of  the  Styx;  cf.  e.g.  Rohde,  2,  411  ff.;  Norden, 
in  his  Einleitung,  10-20.     See  also  above  nn.  44  and  50. 

^^^Ubersetzung  der  Eumeniden,  37  (in  Staehlin,  39). 


76  The  Dream  in  Homer  and  Greek  Tragedy 

finds  in  the  Eumenides  the  union  of  two  originally  distinct 
legends :  first,  the  purification  of  Orestes  at  Delphi  through  the 
medium  of  Apollo,  and,  secondly,  the  trial  and  judgment  of 
Orestes  at  Athens.  The  value  of  the  dream  for  the  economy  of 
the  plot  lies  in  the  fact  that  it  helps  to  explain  the  merging  of 
these  legends  and  the  change  of  location  of  the  ending  of  the 
play  from  Delphi  to  Athens.  To  Athens  Apollo  sends  Orestes 
(79-84) : 

.     .     {ioX(ji)v  8s  IlaXXdSoc;  xotI  xt6Xiv 

XC,ou  xaXat6v  ayxaOev  Xa^wv  PpeTaq. 

xaxeT  Bixa^Taq  twvSs  v.(x.\  GsXxTiQpiouq 

(x66ou<;  Ix^'^'zz^  (XTQ^avag  supYjffotAev, 

ci)(jT*  iq  t6  xav  as  twvS'  dxaXXd^ai  x6v(i)V. 

Thither  in  pursuit  of  him  the  Furies  are  sent  by  the  dream, 
the  ghost  of  Clytaemestra  which  will  not  let  them  rest  at 
Delphi. 

Here  again  a  dead  person  appears  in  the  dream.  Indeed  the 
connection  of  the  dead  with  dreams  throughout  Aeschylus  is 
noteworthy :  compare  the  connection  of  Agamemnon  with  the 
dream  in  the  Choephori,^^^  of  Darius  with  the  dream  in  the 
Persae,^^''  echoes,  it  seems,  of  the  appearance  of  Patroclus  in  the 
Iliad,  the  earliest  appearance,  in  the  extant  literature,  of  the 
dead  in  dreams.  Clytaemestra  also  declares  herself  forced 
by  the  other  dead  to  wander  (95  ff.),  as  was  Patroclus  ;2^^  as  the 
ghost  of  Patroclus  was  the  counterpart  of  the  living  hero,^*' 
so  she  appears — calling  attention  to  her  wounds  (102) — ^in  form 
such  as  was  hers  when  she  lay  dead  at  Orestes'  feet.  Unlike 
Patroclus,  who  did  not  know  of  the  elaborate  preparations  to 
celebrate  his  funeral,  she  has  knowledge  of  what  has  happened 
since  her  death,  for,  as  she  calls  upon  the  Furies,  while  they 
groan  and  talk  in  their  sleep   ('like  a  dog  dreaming  of  the 

296526  ff.;   supra,  70-74.  297175  g.    supra,  60-66. 

^^miad,  23,  72-73 ;  supra,  14.       299Supra,  13  f .     Consult  especially  n.  42. 


Aeschylus  77 

chase',  says  Clytaemestra  [130  ff.]),3oo  she  tells  them  that  Orestes 
has  escaped  and  fled  (111;   118-119)., 

Two  concluding  observations  must  be  made.  First,  the 
dream  is  an  exception  to  the  allegorical  type  usual  in  tragedy;'*'* 
its  message  is  direct  and  the  Eumenides  accept  its  rebtike  (155). 
This  fact  takes  it  out  of  the  category  of  Penelope's  dream  about 
the  geese.302  Secondly,  the  dream  is  received  by  women,  the 
feminine  deities  of  revenge.^®^ 

Minor  References 

The  shorter  references  in  Aeschylus  to  dreams  are,  on  the 
whole,  unimportant,  though  some  of  them  are  picturesque  and 
happy. 

In  the  Septem,  Eteocles  the  scoffer  grants  a  late  credence  to 
the  dreams  which  confirmed  the  curses  of  Oedipus  (710-711): 
dcyav  B'aXTr]0£T(;  ^vuxviwv  cjxzvTaatAaTwv  o^ziq. 

In  the  SuppUces,  when  the  herald  attempts  to  carry  off  the 
maiden  to  the  ship,  she  calls  the  outrage  (888) :  ovap  8vap  jiiXav. 
\  In  the  Prometheus,  the  hero  declares  that  men,  before  his 
civilizing  benefactions,  having  eyes  saw  not,  having  ears  heard 
not,  but  were  (448^49)  dvetpaTwv  dXiyy.toi  [Log^atai.  He  admits 
the  need  of  interpreting  dreams,  and  boasts  himself  the  pioneer 
teacher  of  the  art  (485-486):  x(3cxptva  xpa)To<;  i^  dvstpaxwv  S  X9'h 
uxap  Yevi(y0at.  The  Oceanides  liken  feeble  weakness  to  a  dream 
(547-548):  6XiYoBpav(av  axtxuv,  bovstpov. 

In  the  Agamemnon,  the  watchman  speaks  of  his  couch  during 
the  king's  absence  as  'unvisited  by  dreams',  eOvif)v  dvefpoi?  o6x 
^xtaxoTcoufiivYjv  (13).  The  explanation  of  the  strange  ineptitude 
of  the  chorus  to  act  at  the  crisis  in  1343-1371  is  foreshadowed  by 

»ooCf.  Lucretius,  4,  972  ff.  (ed.  Brieger): 

venantumque  canes  in  moUi  saepe  quiete 

iactant  crura  tamen  subito  vocisque  repente 

mittunt  et  crebro  redducunt  naribus  auras, 

ut  vestigia  si  teneant  inventa  ferarum,  etc. 
'oiSee  above,  33,  n.  105.  ^"^Od.  19,  535-581. 

'o^Supra,  65,  n.  253. 


78  The  Dream  in  Homer  and  Greek  Tragedy 

the  author  early  in  the  play :  old  age  is  as  helpless  as  a  child^ 
as  unreal  as  a  dream,  a  'dream  appearing  by  day',  ovap  iQ(JLep6(t)avT0V 
(82).  In  179-180  there  is  indubitable  reference  to  a  dream 
state,  as  opposed  to  the  treatment  of  the  dream  as  external  in 
origin:  crrdct^et  h*  iv  O'uxvfp  xp6  xapSiaq  (jlvt)jixt){jlg)vx6vo(;.  Thedream 
is  a  type  of  the  illusory  (274) :  x6Tepa  B'dvs^pwv  (j)aj(JLaT*  e6xt0^  aegsiq ; 
asks  the  chorus  of  Clytaemestra  as  she  announces  the  fall  of 
Troy.  The  queen  accepts  this  description  in  her  answer  (275) : 
oO  86?av  av  Xd^ot^i  ^giW(jriq  ^gey6q.  The  semblances  which 
appear  in  dreams  are  fleeting,  evanescent,  bringing  only  a  vain 
joy  (420  ff.).  The  dream  is  used  as  the  equivalent  of  'untruth* 
(491):  eW  o5v  d\y]Mq  eW  dvetpaxwv  Mxyjv.  In  891  ff.  Clytae- 
mestra, in  her  talk  to  Agamemnon,  strikes  a  modern  note.  She 
recognizes  that  the  common  dream  experiences  cannot  occur  in 
the  short  time  devoted  to  sleep.  In  980-981,  'dark  dreams'  are 
easily  effaced:  o6S*  ixoxxOaaq  8(xav  Sujxpftwv  dvetpdtTwv.  Cas- 
sandra in  her  vision  of  horrors  (1214  ff.)  sees  the  children  of 
Thyestes  dvecpwv  xpO(7<|)epsT<;  ^opcjxotiLaacv  (1218). 


SOPHOCLES 

/  Sophocles  employs  the  dream  device  sparingly.  There  are 
in  his  extant  plays  but  two  lesser  references  to  dreams  and  but 
one  fully  related  dream.  One  of  these  smaller  references  is  in 
the  Oedipus  Tyrannus,  980-982:  to  Jocasta  the  dream  can  at 
times  be  a  satisfactory  fulfilment  of  an  unpleasant  oracle. 
She  comforts  Oedipus  with  words  to  that  tenor:  ait  B's^q  xd 
[LTi'zgbq  [L^i  <[)o^oO  vu(X([)e6(jLaTa*  %oXkol  ydp  tjByj  xdv  6ve(paatv  ^poxdiv 
{jLTQTpl  $uveuvdc(j0iQaav.^^  The  second  is  in  the  Acrisius  (Camp- 
bell, 62)  where  fears  are  likened  to  winds  which  in  the  night 
the  dreamer  fancies  he  hears  rising  boisterously,  but  which  he 
finds  less  violent  at  the  break  of  day:  Gapaet,  yuvat*  xd  xoXXi 
xwv  Setvwv,  8vap  xvs6(7avxa  vuxx6q,  "^^.^pa?  iiaXdcjaexai. 

The  Electra 

^^"Tliis  failure  of  Sophocles  to  use  the  dream  device  extensively 
could  not  have  been  other  than  deliberate.''  For  with  the 
example  of  Aeschylus  before  him  he  might  well  have  felt  that  a 
free  handling  of  the  m5rths  would  have  permitted  the  introduc- 
tion of  the  dream.  /'  There  is  only  one  important  dream,  how- 
ever, in  Sophocles*  extant  dramas.  That  is  Clytaemestra's 
dream  in  the  Electra.^W  In  introducing  this  motif  Sophocles  was, 
without  doubt,  following  the  lead  of  Stesichorus  in  the  Oresteia 
fragment^^  and  that  of  Aeschylus  in  the  Choephori}^    It  is 

304PQJ.  examples  of  the  type  of  dream  to  which  Jocasta  refers,  cf.  the 
dream  of  Hippias,  Herodotus,  6,  17;  the  dream  of  Caesar  when  he  was 
quaestor  in  Spain,  Suetonius,  Div.  lul.  7;  Plutarch,  Caes,  32;  Die  Cass. 
37,52;  41,24. 

306417  ff.,  480,  501,  644,  1390. 

'°«Bergk,  42.  See  73  and  83,  n.  280.  For  comment  on  the  Oresteia  of 
Stesichorus,  cf.  A.  Muller,  Aesthetischer  Kommentar  zu  den  Tragodien  des 
Sophokles,  151  ff.  (Paderbom,  1913).  In  this  fragment  the  serpent  is 
pictured  as  approaching  with  blood  upon  its  hea.d,p€ppoTu/xhos  (Clytaemes- 
tra  had  killed  the  king  with  an  ax),  and  then  being  transformed  into  Aga- 
memnon. 

»o7Supra,  70-74. 

79 


80  The  Dream  in  Homer  and  Greek  Tragedy 

noteworthy  that  he  introduces  an  entirely  new  version  of  the 
dream.  In  the  Choephori  Clytaemestra  suckled  a  serpent  which 
drew  blood  from  her  breast .^^^  In  Sophocles'  Electra  the  staff 
of  Agamemnon  sprouts  and  overshadows  the  whole  of 
Mycenae.^^^ 

In  the  Electra  Chrysothemis  interrupts  a  dialogue  about 
Orestes'  return  by  entering  with  sepulchral  offerings  for  Agamem- 
non, which  her  mother  had  sent  her  to  make  at  his  tomb  (406). 
Clytaemestra  has  not  told  her  the  reason  for  the  sending,  but 
Chrysothemis  thinks  the  cause  'an  object  of  horror  appearing  by 
night'  (410).  As  Electra  presses  her  for  a  fuller  explanation  she 
gives  the  story  of  the  dream,  which  someone  had  overheard  as 
the  queen  related  her  dream  to  the  sun  (417-425).^^^ 

If  one  compares  this  dream  in  its  effect  on  the  plot  with  the 
dream  in  the  Choephori,  he  will  find  a  notable  difference.  The 
latter  was  of  great  importance  for  the  action  of  the  play.  In  the 
Electra,  on  the  other  hand,  the  plot  is  independent  of  the  dream. 
The  vision  brings  Chrysothemis  to  the  tomb,  but  she  does  not 
meet  Orestes  and  the  tokens  which  she  has  discovered  there  of 
his  return  are  soon  made  to  seem  false  when  Electra  maintains 
that  he  is  dead  (924-926).  The  dream  produces  no  further 
effect  on  the  progress  of  this  episode  than  this  bringing  of 
Chrysothemis  to  the  tomb.  ^  It  plays,  then,  an  entirely  different 
r61e  from  that  played  by  the  Aeschylean  dream.  It  is  not 
surprising  that  this  should  be  so :    all  the  external  machinery  of 

388533.  309419-423.     Cf.  infra,  83  and  n.  318. 

310'pjjg  scholiast  says  here:  rots  7A/9  TraXaioiS  idos  ^v  AiroTpoiria^ofidvovs 
('by  way  of  expiation')  T(p  ijXlip  dirjyeiadai  ra  dvelpara.  For  comment 
upon  this  and  other  customs  usual  after  such  a  visitation  of  nocturnal 
spooks  or  dreams,  see  supra,  62,  n.  235.  Jebb,  ad  loc,  suggests 
the  following  reasons  for  the  address  to  the  sun.  Helios  (1)  is  god  of 
light  and  purity,  ayvbs  6e6s  (Pindar,  Olymp.  7,  60),  who  dispels  the 
terrors  of  darkness;  (2)  he  is  the  all-seeing  god,  iravbirr-qs,  especially 
the  detecter  of  guilt  (cf.  Od.  8,  270-271),  and  so  able  to  reveal  the  lurking 
wrong  which  an  evil  dream  might  foreshadow;  (3)  generally  he  is  a  saving 
power,  <T(aT'f}p  (Pausanias,  8,  31,  7;  and  cf.  Sophocles,  El.  637  ff.,  where 
Helios  and  Apollo  are  identified). 


Sophocles  81 

gods  and  oracles,  the  mechanism,  in  fine,  by  means  of  which  the 
dramas  of  Aeschylus  move,  is  kept  more  in  the  background  by 
the  greater  craftsman,  Sophocles. 

What  the  dream  does  accompHsh  is  in  the  realm  of  the  por- 
trayal of  character.  '  It  leads  to  the  meeting  of  Chrysothemis 
and  Electra  as  the  former  sets  out  for  the  tomb.  This  meeting 
gives  the  setting  for  that  wonderful  dialogue  between  the  two 
sisters  (892-1057)  in  which  Sophocles  displays  his  supreme 
ability  to  portray,  with  great  strength  and  refinement,  character 
by  contrast.  It  causes  the  appearance  of  Clytaemestra  on  the 
stage  at  line  516.^^^  This  entrance  brings  her  face  to  face  with 
Electra  and  there  ensues  one  of  the  most  important  scenes  in  the 
play.  In  this  scene  is  introduced  a  t5rpical  dramatic  debate 
between  mother  and  daughter,  involving  two  long  speeches,  one 
for  the  defense  (516-551),  one  for  the  plaintiff  (558-609),  and 
considerable  attendant  dialogue.  The  reader  gets  a  more  sym- 
pathetic insight  into  the  queen's  motives  for  the  murder  of 
Agamemnon  and  there  is  aroused  that  pity  for  her  which  is 
essential  to  make  her  part  dramatic.  The  character  of  Electra, 
also,  is  illimiinated  from  another  angle  and  a  different  aspect  of 
her  indomitable  determination  is  clearly  portrayed. 

This  is  exactly  what  one  might  expect.  The  reader  feels  that 
Sophocles  accepted  the  dream  which  was  part  of  the  tale  as  it 
had  been  worked  out  by  his  two  predecessors,  Aeschylus  and 
Stesichorus,  and,  having  accepted  it,  took  from  it  its  important 
r61e  of  aiding  in  the  development  of  the  plot  and  made  it  per- 
form a  function  more  congenial  to  his  artistic  technique.  We 
can  illustrate  this  by  noticing  the  point  in  the  two  dramas  at 
which  the  dream  enters.  Sophocles  mentions  it  late  (417  ff.). 
In  the  Choephori,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  mentioned  on  the  very 
threshold  (32)  and  its  influence  is  felt  throughout  the  whole 

play.^^2 

The  problem  which  this  dream  presents  to  the  dramatis 
personae  is  also  deftly  turned  to  the  purposes  of  portraying 

3"She  gives  this  information  later,  634-636. 
3i2Supra,  72. 


82         The  Dream  in  Homer  and  Greek  Tragedy 

character.  It  is  an  allegorical  dream.  The  audience,  familiar 
with  the  main  outline  of  the  (xOBoq,  finds  no  difficulty  with  the 
meaning  and  interpretation  of  the  dream.  But  the  personae  do 
not  interpret  and  apply  the  dream  with  the  same  unerring 
confidence.  The  chorus  hopes  that  it  may  foreshadow  good  for 
Electra  and  Orestes  (479-481) ;  indeed,  the  chorus  is  willing  to 
stake  its  belief  in  oracles  and  dreams  upon  the  favorable  issue 
of  this  dream  (499-501).  But  to  Clytaemestra  dreams  are 
'ambiguous',  Siaawv  6v£(po)v  (645),^^^  and  Electra's  hopes,  which 
are  at  first  aroused,  are  abandoned  on  the  arrival  of  the  message 
that  Orestes  is  dead  (673-674).  The  argument  from  silence  on 
the  part  of  the  others  indicates  a  like  lack  of  any  definite  opinion 
as  to  the  meaning  of  the  dream.  But  some  potency  in  its 
undoubted  portent  is  realized  throughout.  KaibeP^^  is  cer- 
tainly sound  in  his  contention  that  Sophocles  needed  such  an 
ambiguous  dream  to  make  possible  the  fine  characterization  of 
Clytaemestra  in  lines  634-659. 

In  massiveness  the  rugged,  unambiguous  dream  of  Aeschylus 
dwarfs  this  dream  of  Sophocles.^^^  The  latter  uses  the  dream 
with  great  delicacy  and  skill  in  his  portraiture  of  character,  but 
he  does  not  make  it  play  any  large  part  in  the  development  of 
the  plot.  One  can  see  in  Aeschylus  the  dream  as  part  of  the 
uncovered  machinery  of  the  plot  guiding  the  course  of  the  play; 
in  Sophocles  these  divine  agencies  are  as  certainly  assumed,  but 
their  mechanical  operation  is  less  patent.  He  accepts  the  epic 
view  that  the  vengeance  is  justifiable.  When  that  is  once 
granted  the  plot  moves  on  from  its  own  internal  forces. ^^* 

The  details  of  the  content  of  the  dream  are  of  interest.  In  the 
fragment  from  the  Oresteia  of  Stesichorus  the  dragon  approached 
Cl5rtaemestra  with  gore  upon  its  head  (the  blood  which  was  upon 

"«For  this  interpretation,  cf.  G.  Kaibel,  Elektra,  172  (Leipzig,  1896), 
and  R.  C.  Jebb,  93-94. 

8"Loc.  cit.  135. 

816 "Dej.  Traum  ist  dem  Aischyleischen  gegenuber  {Choe.  526)  durftig", 
says  Kaibel,  135. 

8"Jebb,  32. 


Sophocles  83 

the  head  of  Agamemnon  from  Clytaemestra's  ax)  and  then 
was  turned  into  Agamemnon.^^^ 

T(?t  Bs  Spdxwv  iBoxTQjs  jAoXsTv  xapa  gs^pOTw^jilvoi;  Sxpov* 
iy.  B'apa  toD  paatXsDq  IlXstaGevfBaq  i(j)dtvif3. 

In  Aeschylus,  again  a  dragon  appears :  it  draws  blood  from  the 
breast  of  Clytaemestra.  The  dragon  here  symbolizes  Orestes. 
Both  these  conceptions  have  a  basis  in  folk-lore  in  the  wide- 
spread cult  of  the  serpent,  a  cult  which  has  had  various  ramifica- 
tions.^^^^  Sophocles  tiimed  from  the  serpent  type,  which  after 
all  has  something  of  the  gruesome  and  the  abhorrent,  to  an 
equally  familiar  folk-legend  of  the  sprouting  staff  ^^® — a  type  of 
legend  certainly  not  employed  for  the  first  time  in  the  story  of 
the  rod  of  Aaron.  Herodotus  used  the  same  t3TDe  of  dream: 
Astyages  dreamt  that  there  grew  from  the  womb  of  his  daughter 
Mandane  a  vine  which  overshadowed  the  whole  of  Asia.'^' 
The  vine  was  Cyrus.  Sophocles  was  perhaps  moved  to  this 
choice  by  the  two  passages  in  Homer  dealing  with  the  sceptre 
of  Agamemnon,  Iliad,  1,  234-239;  2,  101-108.  Particularly 
happy  does  this  choice  seem,  especially  to  modems  familiar  with 
the  use  to  which  Lessing  in  his  Laokoon  put  the  pertinent 
passages.320  without  doubt  its  connotative  force  would  be 
even  more  pregnant  to  the  Greeks,  to  whom  Homer  was  as  well 

3"The  prototype  in  literature  of  this  transformation  is  that  of  the  eagle 
into  Odysseus  in  Penelope's  dream,  Od.  19,  535-581 ;  supra,  30-35.  For 
further  comment  of.  supra,  73. 

"^asee  supra,  n.  281. 

'ispor  bibliography,  covering  a  large  number  of  monographs  and  refer- 
ences which  treat  the  different  aspects  of  this  folk-legend,  see  Staehlin, 
51-53,  and  footnotes  there. 

3i9Herodotus,  1,  108.  See  also,  for  the  idea  of  the  spreading  branches, 
the  dream  of  Xerxes,  Herodotus,  7,  19. 

^^^Laokoon,  xv:  "Was  bekiimmert  sich  aber  Homer,  wie  weit  er  den 
Maler  hinter  sich  lasst?  Statt  einer  Abbildung  giebt  er  uns  die  Geschichte 
des  Scepters:  erst  ist  es  unter  der  Arbeit  des  Vulkans;  nun  bemerkt  es 
die  Wiirde  Merkurs;  nun  ist  er  der  Commandostab  des  kriegerischen 
Pelops". 


84         The  Dream  in  Homer  and  Greek  Tragedy 

known  as  the  King  James  version  is  to  the  Scottish  member  of  a 
free  kirk.^^^ 

Here,  as  in  the  earher  passages  in  which  the  dead  appear  in 
dreams,^22  {^  jg  noticeable  that  there  is  no  direct  reference  to  any 
deity  as  the  sender  of  the  dream.  To  a  great  degree  the  ghost 
seems  to  return  of  its  own  accord  (459-460).^^^  It  might  seem 
that  Apollo's  interest  in  the  message  of  the  dream  is  indicated 
by  Electra's  appeal  to  him  *to  bring  its  fulfilment,  if  good;  if 
bad,  to  allow  it  to  recoil  upon  her  foes'  (644-647) .  The  dream  is 
half  direct — ^Agamemnon  appears  as  does  Patroclus,  an  incident 
which  requires  no  interpretation;  half  symbolical,  in  the 
sprouting  staff,  a  wonder  which  is  allegorical  as  are  the  geese  in 
Penelope's  dream.  But  the  importance  of  the  dream  lies  in  its 
allegory,  and  the  little  of  the  non-symbolic  which  is  left  clinging 
to  it  in  the  form  of  the  ghost  of  Agamemnon  is  perhaps  a  sur- 
vival from  the  combination  of  the  allegorical  and  the  direct 
elements,  which  I  have  discussed,  in  the  Odysseus  of  Penelope's 
dream.^^^  In  being  allegorical  it  follows  the  usual — ^but  by  no 
means  unbroken — convention  of  tragedy,  as  it  does  also  in 
appearing  to  a  woman.^^s 

'"Kaibel,  137,  thinks  that  the  passage  in  the  Iliad  (1,  234)  where  Achilles 
takes  oath  by  his  scepter  which  would  never  bloom  again  may  have  in- 
fluenced Sophocles  in  the  figure  which  he  adopted. 

"20rf.  19,  535-581;  Stesichorus,  Oresteia  (Bergk,  42);  Pindar,  Pyth.  4, 
163;  Persae,  176  ff.;   Eumenides,Mfi.. 

*2»I  have  noted  above,  20,  n.  63,  how  the  dead  seem  to  share  with  the 
chthonic  divinities  (and  naturally  so)  the  power  of  sending  dreams.  Cf. 
also  n.  286. 

3"Supra,  34-35. 

«»Supra,  28,  n.  83;  51,  n.  208;  61.     For  allegorical  dreams,  cf .  33,  n.  105. 


EURIPIDES 

^■Though  there  are  four  important  dreams  in  the  tragedies  of 
Aeschylus,  there  is,  as  has  been  shown  above  (p.  79),  but  one  in 
the  works  of  Sophocles.  '  Euripides,  who,  as  is  well  known, 
carried  on  the  Aeschylean  tradition,326  shows  two  that  are  of 
larger  import,  one  of  lesser,  and  fairly  frequent  references  to 
dreams  or  dream  phenomena. 

The  Hecuba 

In  the  HecuhaP^  Euripides  adopts  the  device  which  Aeschylus 
had  used  in  the  Eumenides .^"^^  The  ghost  of  Polydorus,  HoXuSwpou 
s'ifSwXov  xpoXoyt^ov,  which  is  haimting  the  sleeping  Hecuba,  is 
portrayed  visibly  on  the  stage  before  the  eyes  of  the  spectators 
(1-58).  The  ghost  tells  the  audience  how  he  had  been  sent  by 
Priam  to  Polymestor  for  safe-keeping  over  against  the  fall  of 
Troy  (1-20) ;  he  describes  his  treacherous  murder  at  the  hands 
of  Polymestor  (21-27) :  he  declares  that  his  body  had  been  left 
dcTa(t)0(;  (30)^^^  and  floating  about  the  sea,  and  that  at  this  very 
moment  he  was  gliding   about   his   dear  mother's  head  (i.  e. 

'26For  the  general  question  of  how  Euripides  carried  on  the  Aeschylean 
tradition  in  vocabulary,  meter,  construction  of  plot  and,  in  fact,  in  the 
whole  matter  of  literary  technique,  see  the  doctoral  dissertations  of 
O.  Krausse,  De  Euripide  Aeschyli  Instauratore  (lena,  1905);  H.  Burk- 
hardt,  Die  Archaismen  des  Euripides  (Hannover,  1906);  and  the  biblio- 
graphy cited  in  their  footnotes.  A  still  more  recent  essay  is  that  by 
C.  A.  Manning,  A  Study  of  Archaism  in  Euripides  (New  York,  1916); 
see  especially  pages  68-72. 

"^For  a  recent  discussion  of  ths  technique  of  this  prologue  cf .  E.  Petersen, 
Die  Attische  Tragodie  (Bonn,  1915). 

•"Supra,  74-77. 

•"For  the  folk-belief  in  regard  to  the  4To0ot  cf.  Rohde,  2,  411  flf.;  Nor- 
den  (Einleitung),  10-20.     See  also  n.  294. 

85 


86         The  Dream  in  Homer  and  Greek  Tragedy 

he  was  appearing  to  her  in  a  dream), ^^^  having  hovered  over  the 
body  three  days  (32),^^^  while  the  Greek  ships  were  delayed 
through  the  appearance  of  the  ghost  of  Achilles  above  his  tomb 
demanding  Pol3^ena  as  a  victim  (35-41)  i^^  he  prophesies  the 
death  of  his  sister  in  answer  to  Achilles*  demand  (42-44),  and 
the  finding  and  burial  of  his  own  corpse  (45-52) ;  then  he  says 
(52-54):  .  .  .  yspata  S*  ^xxoBct)v  xwpTQaojxat 
*ExdcPiQ*  Tzgq:  yd:p  tJB'  6x6  (jxyjvyjc;  x6Ba 
*AYatJL£(jLVovo<;,  cjxzvTaa^a  Set^atvoua'  i(Ji6v. 

Finally  after  a  few  further  lines  of  soliloquy  the  spectre  is  gone. 
Hecuba  now  comes  upon  the  scene,  driven  from  Agamemnon's 
tent  by  disquieting  dreams  (68-97)  concerning  Polydorus  and 
Polyxena. 

(i)  (JTSpoxa  At6<;,  d)  axoxla  vu?, 

she  says  as  she  sees  the  starry  heavens,  which  make  the  night 
seem  all  the  darker  ;^^^  she  invokes  earth,  the  chthonic  divini- 
ties ;^^^  she  calls  aloud  for  Helenus  or  Cassandra  to  interpret  the 
dreams  which  she  has  had  about  her  son  and  daughter.  She 
distinctly  uses  the  pliiral,  6v£(pou?  (89),  yet  in  what  follows  she 
narrates  to  the  chorus  but  one  dream,  the  dream  of  the  hind  and 
the  wolf  (which  manifestly  refers  to  Polyxena),  for  the  appari- 
tion of  Achilles,  which  she  mentions  (92  ff .),  came  not  to  her 
personally,  but  to  all  the  Greek  host,  and  was  not  a  dream,  but  a 

»»°This  is  the  interpretation  accepted  by  Bemardakis,  ad  loc.  He 
quotes  the  scholiast:  inr^p  rijs  Ke<f>a\T}s  rijs  firjTpds'  6  iffTiv,  6va.p  avr^  <pahofiat. 
Cf.  Iliad,  2,  20;  23,  68;  Od.  4,  803,  etc.,  and  Weil,  Sept  Trag.  219. 

'^^Three  days  was  the  usual  period  for  the  soul  to  linger  about  the  corpse; 
cf.  Bemardakis  on  this  line. 

332The  appearance  of  Achilles  is  not  a  dream  but  a  waking  vision; 
cf.  infra,  87,  n.  335. 

333Bernardakis  says  in  his  note  on  this  Une:  'H  'E/cd/Sr;  i^ipxerai  t^v  viKra 
tlvrpofios  4k  t7]s  ffKTivTJs,  Kal  iTTKpJjvei:  &,  iroTos  dffTepotpeyyijs  oipap6s,  &,  iroia 
ffKoretv^  vi5|! 

"*Again  the  interpretation  of  Bemardakis. 


Euripides  87 

waking  vision.^ss  What  then  was  her  vision  of  Polydorus? 
The  answer  is :  the  pertinent  parts  of  the  prologue  which  the 
ghost  of  Polydorus  speaks.  With  consummate  skill  Euripides 
does  not  have  Hecuba  repeat  what  he  has  already  portrayed 
upon  the  stage :  the  dream  of  Hecuba  about  Polydorus  has  been 
put  before  the  audience  by  the  ghost  of  Polydorus.  Hecuba 
tells  the  chorus  the  vision  which  can  be  appHed  only  to  Polyxena. 
The  proof  of  the  correctness  of  this  interpretation  we  may  see 
by  comparing  with  this  dream  prologue  the  passage  (702  ff.)» 
wherein  Hecuba  is  shown  the  dead  body  of  her  son : 

*Exc«pTQ.  wpLot,  a?ac,  sVaOov  evu-rcvov  6(jLfjLaia)v 

^(i<j\L<x  tJLsXav6xTepov,  xdv  iaetSov  d[L^l  ci, 
J)  Tsxvov,  oOxst'  ovTa  Atoq  iv  ([xzei. 

X6poq.      ziq  yap  vtv  ixTstv';  oIa6'  6v£ip6<j)pa)v  ^gddai; 

^Exd^Yj.  i[Lbq  i[Lb<;  ^evoq,  ©pyixtoc;  l'K'K6':<xq, 

W  6  yipwv  xaTifjp  ^0£t6  viv  TLpu^aq.^^ 

That  the  ghost  which  speaks  the  prologue  is  the  dream  has 
not  always  been  understood  by  the  editors,  and  no  less  a  critic 
than  Wilamowitz  has  gone  so  far  as  to  declare  lines  73-78  and 
90-97  the  work  of  an  tinskilled  interpolator.^  Nothing  could 
be  further  from  the  truth.  To  be  sure  there  is  not  'complete 
coextension'  between  what  the  ghost  says  to  the  audience^*  and 
what  Hecuba  sees  in  the  dream.  For  example,  there  is  no  need 
for  telling  Hecuba  the  well-known  tale  of  Polydorus'  being  sent 

'3^In  the  poets  the  waking  vision  may  be  seen  by  several,  as  here  by  all 
the  Greek  host,  but  in  the  dream  the  spirit  commonly  appeared  to  a  single 
person;    cf.  Hardie,  Lectures,  91. 

836702-720. 

^'^Hermes,  44,  446-449.  He  feels  that  this  prologue  is  a  combination 
of  many  variant  archetypes  thrown  together  by  the  Alexandrian  scholars 
into  a  conglomerate  mass  for  fear  that  something  might  be  lost  in  the 
attempt  to  excise  what  was  not  genuine. 

3881-58. 


88         The  Dream  in  Homer  and  Greek  Tragedy 

to  Thrace.  But  that  Euripides  conceives  Polydorus  as  appear- 
ing to  Hecuba  in  sleep,  the  words  (30  f.),  vOv  S'  uxip  [Lri^gbq  ^iXriq 
*Exa^Y5<;  dfaao),  as  the  scholiast  early  perceived,^^^  leave  indu- 
bitable. 

The  situation  which  seems  to  have  caused  this  lack  of  entire 
coincidence  is  the  following.  Aeschylus  in  his  Persae,  it  will 
be  recalled,  had  introduced  the  ghost  of  Darius,^*^  frankly, 
admittedly  a  ghost,  talking  to  the  waking  Persians,  not  a  dream. 
In  his  Eumenides,  he  portrayed  the  ghost  of  Clytaemestra  on 
the  stage.  The  appearance  and  words  of  Clytaemestra  were 
the  Eumenides'  dream,  for  all  that  Clytaemestra  says  is 
addressed  to  the  sleeping  Furies  and  is  easily  understood  as  the 
content  of  their  vision.  There  are  no  words  intended  for  the 
ear  of  the  audience  alone.  Etiripides,  notoriously  fond  of 
Aeschylean  devices,^^^  has  been  guilty  of  a  contaminatio  of  these 
two  conceptions.  He  has  united  the  idea  of  the  ghost  of  the 
dead  speaking  in  a  waking  vision  (from  the  Persae)  and  that  of 
the  ghost  of  the  dead  appearing  and  speaking  in  a  dream  (from 
the  Eumenides).  The  situation  is  further  complicated  because 
he  brings  this  dream  to  the  forefront  of  the  drama  and  uses  it 
for  a  prologue,  the  earliest  example  of  the  ovstpo?  TupoXoyft^wv.  ^ 
The  very  heavy  share  of  the  burden  of  advancing  the  plot  put 
upon  the  dream  in  this  position  has  led  to  some  infelicities  and 
some  illogicalities,  due  to  the  fact  that  the  author  is  handling  an 
unfamiliar  bit  of  technique.^^^  Strictly,  all  that  can  be  intended 
only  for  the  audience  rather  than  for  the  worried  Hecuba  should 
have  been  excised  from  this  dream,  as  Aeschylus  was  careful  to 
do  in  the  Eumenides.  But  in  spite  of  these  strictures,  we  must 
see  that  the  prologue  remains  of  one  texture,  technically,  with 
Clytaemestra' s  dream  in  the  Eumenides. 

'3®Cf .  the  statement  of  the  scholiast,  quoted  in  n.  330. 

'"681  ff.     Supra,  63.  3«Supra,  85,  n.  326. 

'^The  infelicities  Wilamowitz,  Hermes,  44,  446  f.,  has,  perhaps,  over- 
emphasized. 


Euripides  89 

In  regard  to  the  economy  of  the  play  this  dream  has  even  a 
heavier  duty  to  perform  than  the  usual  Euripidean  prologue.^ 
The  subject  of  the  play  is  the  psychology  of  Hecuba  under  the 
lash  of  sorrow  and  revenge. ^^^  This  psychology  is  depicted  by 
the  joining  of  two  incidents,  which  have  no  inner  connection 
or  necessary  relation,  the  sacrifice  of  Polyxena  and  the  dis- 
covery and  punishment  of  the  crime  of  Polymestor.^'^  This 
joining  is  effected,  so  far  as  the  incidents  can  be  joined,  by  the 
dream  prologue.^^  It  is  emphasized  again  by  Hecuba,  at  her 
first  entrance  (73-76) : 

d\k^\  noXu^etvYjq  TS  ^'Ckr\q  0UYaTp6<;  IC  dvstpwv 
[sIBov  yap]  <l)o^£p(3:v  [o^l^tv  ijAaGov]  iSaiQV. 

and  then,  as  if  to  introduce  the  second  incident,  the  poet  makes 
the  following  the  last  words  which  pass  between  Polyxena  and 
her  mother  as  the*  daughter  is  led  away  for  immolation  (428-430) : 

HoXu^ecvT).     0  t'Iv  c!)tX(xxot?  €)py3?l  noXuSwpo*;  xaaiq. 
^Exa^Y).  e?  l^fj  y'*  dxiaro)  B**  (oSs  xavxa  Suaruxw. 

HoXu^sfvY].     X^yi  %(x\  GavoucTTjc;  o^xjxa  auyxXyiast  t6  ff6v. 

The  chorus  sings  a  lyric,  after  which  Talthybius  enters  and  the 
Polydorus-Pol5rmestor  episode  begins. 

^^The  greatest  changes  in  the  external  form  of  the  drama  made  by 
Euripides  were  (1)  in  the  prologue,  and  (2)  in  the  use  of  the  deus  ex  machina, 
i.fe.  the  epilogue.  Cf.  P.  Masqueray,  Euripide  et  ses  idSes,  39-45  (Paris, 
1908);  F.  Commer,  De  Prologorum  Euripideorum  Caussa  ac  Ratione 
(Diss.  Bonn.,  1864);  also  the  ridicule  to  which  Aristophanes  subjects 
them.  Frogs,  1198-1247.  For  a  defense  of  the  deus  ex  machina  see  H.  H. 
Yeames,  The  Classical  Weekly,  10,  202. 

3<4The  lines  422-423,  seemingly  so  colorless,  could  really  be  taken  as 
the  text  of  the  play,  "das  ergreifende  Pathos  der  unglucklichen  Konigin", 
says  Christ2,  1,  273. 

»«1_52. 

»«See  Wilamowitz,  1.  c.  446;  Staehlin,  89-90. 


90  The  Dream  in  Homer  and  Greek  Tragedy 

This  dream  does  not  control  any  long  succession  of  inci- 
dents as  dreams  do  elsewhere.  It  does  indeed  bring  Hecuba 
from  the  tent  to  cry  her  dreams  to  heaven,^^^  but  beyond  that 
it  does  not  affect  the  action.  In  this  point  of  technique  Eu- 
ripides here  differs  signally  from  Aeschylus,  who  employed 
dreams  so  freely  as  part  of  the  machinery  of  the  plot.  The  aim 
of  this  play  of  Euripides  primarily  was  to  depict  human  psy- 
chology and  not  to  portray  himian  action.  The  function  of 
the  dream  lay,  then,  in  a  different  dimension  and  in  this  di- 
mension, as  I  have  indicated  in  the  preceding  paragraph,  it 
carried  successfully  an    important  burden. 

Turning  now  to  details,  we  find  that  many  of  the  stereotyped 
features  which  I  have  hitherto  noticed  are  present.  The  sYBwXov 
of  Polydorus  takes  the  traditional  position  of  the  dream  of 
Homer  (30),  uicip  [I'q'zghq  ^iX-qq.^"^^  Its  epic  prototype  is  the 
returned  Patroclus  of  the  Iliad;  to  this  are  added  tragic  refine- 
ments taken  from  the  poet's  predecessors,  particularly  Aeschy- 
lus. Polydorus  comes,  as  do  Patroclus^"^^  and  Clytaemestra,^^° 
because  something  prevents  his  spirit  from  resting  in  peace. 
Like  Patroclus;^^^  Polydorus  has  prophetic  sight. ^^^  q^^e  part 
of  the  dream  which  deals  with  Polydorus  is  epically  direct  and 
unallegorical.^^  The  portion  dealing  with  Polyxena  is  alle- 
gorical; the  symbolism,  which  involves  a  dappled  hind  and 
blood-marked  wolf,  is  drawn  from  the  animal  world  (90-91). 
Again  a  woman  is  the  recipient  .^^  X0 wv ^^^  is  definitely  mentioned 
as  the  sender.  Finally,  as  coming  from  the  earth,  dreams  are 
black  winged  (71;   705). ^^^ 

^*^Consult  the  discussion  of  purification  after  dreams,  supra,  62,  n.  235. 

^^Ci.  Iliad,  2,  20;  10,496;  23,68;  0^.4,803;  6,21;  20,32;  supra,  6, 
n.  22. 

^*miad,  23,  71.  ^^^Eumenides,  97  fif. 

3"//md,  23,  80-81.  352Lines  42-52. 

*^Supra,  33,  n.  105.  decoprffiariKol  and  a\\7}yopiKoi  respectively,  Arte- 
midorus  (1,  2,  p.  4:  p.  9;  4,  1,  1,  p.  201)  would  call  dreams  similar  to 
these.     The  Polyxena  section  he  would  class  with  the  iWriyopiKoL. 

3"Supra,  nn.  81.  and  83.  355Cf.  Iph.  Taur.  1262. 

356Cf.  Od.  24,  12;  Aeneid,  6,  283. 


Euripides  91 

The  Iphigenia  Taurica 

The  second  dream  which  bulks  large  in  Euripides  is  in  the 
T auric  Iphigenia  (42  ff .) .  Iphigenia  dreamt  that  she  was  sleep- 
ing once  more  in  her  native  Argos  when  suddenly  an  earthquake 
drove  her  in  terror  from  the  house.  Stopping  without  she  looked 
back  and  beheld  the  palace  thrown  down  in  ruins,  so  that  but  one 
pillar  was  left  standing.  This  pillar  received  the  golden"^ 
locks  and  voice  of  a  mortal.  She,  weeping,  sprinkled  this  mortal 
as  a  victim  for  slaughter. 

In  this  play,  as  elsewhere  in  tragedy ,^^^  the  oracle  of  Phoebus 
is  the  mainspring  of  the  action  (77  ff .) .  But  Euripides,  probably 
writing  tinder  an  evergrowing  Aeschylean  influence,^^*  promotes 
the  dream  to  the  Aeschylean  r61e  of  aiding  in  situation  and 
incident.  Recognizing,  then,  that  the  oracle  is  the  foimdation 
of  the  action,  we  must  nevertheless  notice  that  the  dream  lends 
no  meager  assistance  to  the  progression  of  the  plot.  Iphigenia, 
brought  upon  the  stage  by  it  to  tell  her  vision  to  the  sky,'*^ 
sketches  the  historical  background  and  setting  of  the  play 
(1-41)  .3^1  She  then  tells  her  dream  and  fastens  upon  it  a 
wholly  unnecessary  and,  as  the  sequel  shows,  o.  false  interpreta- 
tion.362     'Orestes  is  dead'  (55-58) : 

'"Euripides  is  careful  to  help  to  the  understanding  of  his  allegory  by 
hints:  fai'^As  is  a  word  that  he  generally  uses  to  describe  the  hair  of 
the  members  of  the  house  of  Atreus. 

'68Cf .  supra,  59. 

w'Supra,  88,  and  nn.  326  and  341. 

*^^\4^(o  wpbs  aie4p\  4cS.    Supra,  62,  and  n.  235;  80,  and  n.  310. 

'"Verses  1^1  comprise  the  usual  Euripidean  narrative  prologue.  Our 
author  use^  such  prologues  to  all  his  plays  except  the  Iphigenia  in  Aulis 
and  the  Rhesus.  The  lines  following  verse  42,  where  the  real  dream  begins, 
form  an  integral  part  of  the  action.  Iphigenia  with  the  telling  of  her 
dream  enters  for  the  first  time  into  her  dramatic  r61e. 

362This  employment  of  a  false  interpretation  of  a  dream  to  advance  the 
action  is,  for  the  extant  literature,  an  invention  of  Euripides.  The  source 
of  the  suggestion  is  conjectural.  In  Iliad,  2,  1  ff.,  the  message  of  the 
dream  is  direct,  without  need  of  interpretation,  and  its  essential  falseness 


92         The  Dream  in  Homer  and  Greek  Tragedy 

.     .     .     Touvap  h'  cSSs  (JutA&aXXd)  T68e* 
tISviqx*  ^OpeaTYjq,  o5  xaTiQp^afjLYjv  iyw. 
(jTuXot  yocp  o'i?xo)V  xaTSi(;  sbtv  apasvsi;' 

Her  misinterpretation  gives  an  atmosphere  of  somberness  and 
foreboding  to  the  play.  This  conclusion,  previously  reached, 
had  moved  her  to  summon  her  Greek  fellow-captives  and  atten- 
dants of  Artemis  to  aid  in  performing  rites  to  the  brother  who, 
she  is  sure,  is  dead  (63 ;  138) .  Their  delay  in  coming  (64-66) 
clears  the  stage  for  the  short  scene  between  Orestes  and  Pylades 
(67-122).  Finally  they  enter  in  answer  to  her  call  (123)  and 
ask  the  reason  for  the  summons  (137-142).  Iphigenia  breaks 
forth  into  lamentations :  'what  a  dream  have  I  seen  in  the  night 
of  which  the  darkness  has  departed'  (150-152).  The  chorus  is 
asked  to  join  her  dirge  for  the  dead,  for  that  Orestes  is  no  more 
she  can  entertain  no  doubts:  compare  her  positive  words 
(156-158;    230-231)  :363 

Pl6vov  oq  (xe  xaatyvifjTOV  <ju\q:q 
'A(8(5t  %i[Lt^aq,     .     .     . 

t6v  8'  "Apyei  B^jiaSlvTa  xXa((i) 
CTuyyovov,     .     .     . 

The  chorus  in  joining  in  the  dirge  for  the  brother  supposedly 
dead  draws  in  still  darker  hues  the  tragedy  of  the  house  of 
Atreus  (179-202). 

(not  a  misinterpretation  of  it)  causes  many  woes  to  the  Greeks.  So 
also  the  dream  which  the  wily  Pelias  reports  to  Jason,  Pindar,  Pyth.  4, 
163  ff.,  may  have  been  looked  upon  by  Euripides  as  an  invention  of  the 
faithless  monarch,  that  is,  as  a  fictitious  dream.  Either  of  these  dreams 
may  have  suggested  the  Euripidean  conception  of  the  false  interpretation 
of  a  true  dream.  Or  the  hint  may  have  been  transferred  from  the  realm 
of  oracular  responses,  traditionally  ambiguous,  notoriously  susceptible  of 
conflicting    interpretations. 

'"Cf .  also  373-374,  378-379. 


Euripides  93 

This  device  of  misinterpretation  leads  to  a  truly  tragic  sittia- 
tion;  Iphigenia  hardens  her  heart  against  the  entrance  of  any 
human  kindness  when  the  capture  of  the  stranger  Greeks, 
Orestes  and  Pylades,  is  announced:  as  the  result  of  the  dream 
she  will  show  no  pity  (348-350) : 

vOv  S'  i^  6v£(p(ov  olaiv  -^YpKopLeGa, 
SoxoOa'  'OpsjTYjv  (XTQxse'  rfkiov  ^Xixeiv, 
Suavouv  tJLS  XTQ(]^£a0',  oiTivlq  xoS*  ijxeTe.^^ 

When  the  unrecognized  Orestes  tells  her  that  her  brother  is  not 
dead,  she  does  not  reinterpret  the  dream,  but  immediately 
declares  it  false  (569) : 

tI;£uS6T(;  ovstpoi,  xafpex"  oOB^v  -^t*  apa. 

And  Orestes,  who  has  made  all  his  moves  under  the  influence  of 
Apollo's  oracle,  in  reply  declares  that  Apollo  is  falser  than 
winged  dreams  (570-571) : 

06B*  ot  ao<|)ot  ye  h(xi[Loyeq  xexXTQ[xivot 

Here  the  two  leading  forces  in  the  development  of  the  action  of 
the  play  up  to  this  point,  the  dream,  sent,  as  usual,  to  a  woman, 
and  the  oracle  delivered,  as  usual,  to  a  man,  are  brought  into 
contact,  and  both  woman  and  man  repudiate  their  former 
belief s.^^^  At  this  place  all  influence  of  the  dream  on  the  action 
ceases.^^^    The  remainder  of  the  plot,  till  the  entrance  of  the 

^^*See  the  entire  speech  beginning  line  342. 

^^^Correctly  interpreted,  both  dream  and  oracle  are  fulfilled.  One  may 
compare  the  similar  fulfilment  of  the  oracle  in  the  Oedipus  TyrannuSf 
980-982,  at  which  Jocasta  scoffs. 

366Staehlin's  statement,  p.  113,  "Hatte  Iphigeneia  den  Traum  recht 
gedeutet,  so  dass  sie  in  ihm  nur  eine  Lebensgefahr  fur  Orestes,  nicht 
seinen  schon  erfolgten  Tod  gelesen  hatte,  so  musste  sie  wohl  ohne  weiteres 
in  einem  der  beiden  Griechen  ihren  Bruder  erkennen",  is  without  justifica- 
tion. The  anagnorisis  is  not  hastened  by  her  early  recognition  that  the 
dream  has  deceived  her.  The  utmost  effect  of  the  misinterpretation  is 
as  I  have  stated  it. 


94         The  Dream  in  Homer  and  Greek  Tragedy 

0e6(;  d%b  tAY)xav"^<;,  develops  naturally  from  two  factors:  first,  the 
interplay  of  character  and  situation,  which  turns  the  thoughts 
of  the  priestess  toward  home,  and,  secondly,  the  oracle  of 
Loxias,  which  demands  that  the  image  of  Artemis  be  carried  to 
Athens.367 

^^T^vrevdev  aiSijv  rpirroSos  4k  xP^^ov  Xaxdyy 

&ya\fi'  ^Adrjv&y  t'  iyKadtSpv(rai  x^ovi  (976-978). 

Those  who,  on  the  basis  of  the  words  of  the  chorus  (1262  ff.),  pronounce 
Ge  the  sender  of  the  dream  (see  Paley's  note  ad  loc.  and  the  editors  quoted 
there)  unmistakably  err.  This  chorus  (1234  ff.)  is  connected  with  the  rest  of 
the  play  by  a  very  slender  thread,  as  is  so  common  in  Euripides.  The  oracle 
from  Delphi  which  brought  Orestes  among  the  savage  Taurians  and  exposed 
him  to  death — the  oracle  which  he  has  thrice  reproached  as  false  (77,  570- 
571,  711  ff.) — not  only  has  saved  him  when  at  the  point  of  death,  but  has 
discovered  for  him  a  sister  who,  he  thought,  had  been  sacrificed.  Hence 
the  moment  is  well  chosen  to  chant  the  glory  of  Apollo  and  his  oracle 
(see  Weil,  Sept  Trag.,  on  this  line).  The  chorus  makes  the  subject  of 
its  lyric  the  fable  of  how  the  clear,  bright  divination  of  Apollo  replaced 
the  earlier  chthonic  incubation  cult  which  had  its  seat  at  Delphi.  The 
chorus  tells  the  story  of  the  strife.  When  Apollo  had  dispossessed  Themis* 
the  ancient  prophetic  goddess  of  Delphi,  Earth,  Vaia,  sent  up  to  mortals 
prophetic  dreams  to  rival  the  oracle  of  Apollo.  Apollo  appealed  to  Zeus 
and  the  latter  deprived  Gaia  of  this  competing  power  (1262-1283).  The 
import  of  this  passage  as  symbolic  of  the  triumph  of  a  later  over  an 
earlier  religion  has  been  everywhere  recognized  (cf.  Rohde,  2,  58:  "Einst 
hatte  zu  Pytho,  liber  dem  Felsspalt,  aus  dem  der  erregende  Erddunst 
aufstieg,  ein  Orakel  der  Gaia  bestanden,  in  dem  vermutlich  die  Rath- 
suchenden  durch  nachtliche  Wahrtraume  belehrt  wurden  [Eurip.  Iph. 
Taur.  1230  ff.].  ApoU  setzte  sich  an  die  Stelle  der  Erdgottin,  hier  wie  an 
anderen  Orakelstatte" ;  Hey,  22).  But  the  factors  which  those  who 
apply  this  story  to  the  dream  of  Iphigenia  have  not  recognized  are  two: 
(1)  the  strife  is  looked  upon  as  in  the  past,  so  far  in  the  past  that  the 
long-exiled  chorus  chants  it  as  one  of  the  famous  legends  of  Apollo;  hence 
the  dream  of  the  night  preceding  cannot  be  referred  to  this  rivalry;  (2)  the 
dream  of  Iphigenia  is  not  unfulfilled,  only  her  misinterpretation  of  it  is  found 
to  be  incorrect.  Hence  Earth  does  not  on  this  occasion  send  up  a  lying 
dream  to  balk  Apollo.  Indeed,  Apollo  took  over,  at  least  partially,  the 
ancient  practice  of  sending  dreams  till  Asclepius  assumed  the  incubation 
function.  We  can  only  say,  then,  that  Euripides  chose  to  leave  the 
sender  of  the  dream  indeterminate.    Apollo  had  replaced  Gaia  and  it 


Euripides  95 

/  When  we  look  at  this  dream  as  a  dream,  the  first  thing  that 
strikes  us  is  its  elaboration;  it  is  the  most  intricately  and 
artistically  fashioned  of  the  dreams  yet  discussed.  It  may  be 
divided  into  four  episodes.  First,  there  is  the  picture  of 
Iphigenia,  removed  from  the  barbaric  land  of  the  Tauri  and 
again  restored  to  her  native  Argos,  slumbering  in  the  chamber*** 
in  which  she  slept  as  a  child  (44-46).^^®  The  second  picture 
disturbs  this  idyllic  scene  with  the  panic  and  desolation  of  the 
earthquake.  When  the  earth  is  shaken,  Iphigenia  rushes  forth 
and  turns  to  see  the  house  falling,  stone  after  stone,  until  but 
one  pillar  is  left  standing  (46-51) .  The  third  episode  introduces 
the  element  of  the  weird  and  the  supernatural:  the  pillar  is 
made  man  with  yellow  locks  and  hirnian  voice  (51-52).  In  the 
fourth  picture  the  stem  reality  of  the  horrid  office  of  her  waking 
hours  breaks  even  into  her  slumbers.  With  tears  she  performs 
her  priestly  function,  anointing  the  htmian  victim  for  immola- 
tion.^o 

may  be  that  he  here  sent  the  dream,  also,  which  cooperated  so  well  with 
his  oracle  to  advance  the  action.  This  discussion  is,  of  course,  far  more 
important  from  a  philosophical,  psychological  standpoint;  but  it  is  also 
not  without  meaning  in  a  survey  of  the  elements  entering  into  the  use  of  a 
literary  device  which  showed  such  a  strong  tendency  to  become  stereo- 
typed. 

'^^I  read  irapdevQa-i  5'  iv  fxiffois ;    see  Weil's  note  in  his  critical  appendix. 

"•The  basic  theory  of  the  famous  Viennese  psychologist.  Professor 
Sigmund  Freud,  is  that  the  dream  always  represents  the  fulfilment  of  a 
wish.  The  conscious  wish  becomes  a  dream  inciter  only  when  it  succeeds 
in  arousing  a  similar  unconscious  one.  In  his  view  the  wish  as  represented 
in  the  dream  must,  as  a  rule,  be  an  infantile  one.  Iphigenia's  dream  of 
slumbering  in  the  chamber  where  she  slept  as  a  child  closely  fulfils  the 
terms  of  this  formula.    Cf.  also  supra,  47,  n.  194. 

'^<»It  should  be  noted  here  that  Iphigenia  never  performed  the  actual 
slaying  of  the  human  victims:  Kardpxofiai  fUp,  aipdyca  d'AWourip  /ifKtt 
AppriT  i<T<ad€v  T(av8'  dvaKrSpojv  Seas  (40-41).  But,  as  that  killing  im- 
mediately followed  her  consecration  of  the  victims,  her  misinterpretation 
of  the  dream  was  natural  enough.  Her  impiety  lay  in  declaring  the  dream 
false  on  the  basis  of  this  wholly  unnecessary  interpretation. 


96  The  Dream  in  Homer  and  Greek  Tragedy 

£  This  brief  description  shows  how  the  internal  technique  of  the 
dream  is  developing  toward  a  greater  complexity.  The  dream 
under  discussion  marks  an  advance  toward  the  long  and  elabor- 
ate dreams  which  the  later  literatures  developed.  There  is  a 
romantic,  a  sentimental  note,  so  beloved  by  the  Alexandrians,^^^ 
in  the  picture  of  Iphigenia's  sleeping  again  in  the  maiden  quar- 
ters of  her  old  home,  a  note  which  tends  to  arouse  the  pity  and 
the  sympathy  of  the  audience.  It  is  nearly  related  to  the 
emotion  aroused  by  the  feeling  of  desertion  and  bewilderment 
which  Ilia  expresses  in  the  Annates  of  Ennius.^^^  Euripidean 
technique  wielded  a  strong  influence  among  the  Alexandrians^^^ 
and  this  highly  complex  and  romantic  dream  was  the  forerunner 
of  similar  elements  in  the  dreams  of  that  later  period.  Other 
dreams  were  awe-inspiring  or  pity-arousing,  perhaps,  but  only 
for  their  influence  upon  the  rest  of  the  story,  externally  so. 
Here  the  dream  seems  to  acquire  a  personality  of  its  own.  It 
has  a  value  and  beauty  independent  of  its  connection  with  the 
story  and  of  its  meaning  to  the  play.  It  differs  from  earlier 
dreams  as  a  finished  building  differs  from,  the  architect's  plan 
or  a  painting  from  a  blocked-in  sketch.  It  approximates  the 
perfected  and  highly-chiselled  miniatures  in  which  the  Alexan- 
drian period  delights.^^*  Tendencies  are  of  long  growth  and 
obscure  origin.  One  need  not  end  his  search  for  the  supsTYjg  of 
this  type  of  Alexandrian  love  of  intricate  detail  at  Euripides. 
It  is  worth  while,  however,  to  call  attention  to  its  existence  here 
in  a  dream  for  the  first  time  in  the  extant  poetry. 

"iCf.  Couat,  80  ff.;   Ellis,  xxxvii. 

"^Cicero,  Div.  1,  20,  40;  Vergil  repeats  the  note  in  Dido's  dreams,  Aen.  4, 
465  ff.  The  dependence  of  Ennius  upon  the  Alexandrians  in  respect  of 
at  least  one  type  of  dream  I  have  attempted  to  demonstrate  in  another 
place;  see  above,  n.  224. 

373Cf.  Couat,  vi;   59;   Ellis,  xxxv;  278-279. 

374Ellis,  xxxvi  ff.;  Couat,  517  ff.;  and  the  various  Einleitungen  and 
Schlussbemerkungen  to  the  accounts  of  the  different  literary  genres  in  the 
Inhalt  of  Susemihl. 


Euripides  97 

The  Rhesus 

The  dream  mentioned  above"^  as  of  lesser  import,  yet  related 
in  full,  is  found  in  the  Rhesus  (780-788).  Homer  had  suggested 
it.     Diomedes,  he  said,  slew  Rhesus 

(^CT0{jia(vovTa*  xax^v  yd^p  (5vap  xs<|)aXii<|)iv  ixlaTtj.^* 

The  Rhesus  is  the  one  extant  tragedy  the  plot  of  which  parallels 
an  incident  from  the  Iliad.  Euripides  assigns  the  dream  to  the 
charioteer — a  change  prompted,  presumably,  by  the  depart- 
ment of  literature  in  which  the  poet  is  composing,  since,  other- 
wise, some  such  elaborate  device  as  that  found  in  the  Hecuba 
would  have  been  necessary  to  make  the  content  of  the  dream 
known — and  relates  it  in  full."^  The  charioteer  had  discovered 
two  men  prowling  about  the  camp.  Thinking  them  petty 
plunderers  he  frightened  them  away  and  then  lay  down  again 
and  slept.  In  his  sleep  a  vision  stood  at  his  side  (780).^^^  He 
beheld  two  wolves  mounted  upon  the  backs  of  the  mares  of 
Rhesus,  where  the  driver  usually  sits.  With  their  tails  they 
lashed  the  horses  till  the  steeds  plunged  and  reared.  The 
charioteer  attempted  to  drive  off  the  wolves,  but  the  activity 
involved  in  the  attempt  and  his  fright  aroused  him  from  slumber. 

This  dream  is  interesting  from  many  points  of  view.  The 
Rhesus  has  been  the  subject  of  endless  controversy.     By  some 

«6Supra,  85. 

^"^^Iliad,  10,  496.  See  the  discussion  of  the  technique  of  this  dream 
supra,  9-12. 

'"On  this  point  cf .  my  words  supra,  56-59,  in  regard  to  the  changes  in 
technique  which  the  same  dream  may  experience  in  its  progress  through 
the  different  literary  types.  In  the  story  of  the  Iliad,  Rhesus  carried  the 
subject-matter  of  the  dream  with  him  to  the  grave.  Of  course  one  predi- 
cates his  statement  of  these  changes  on  the  basis  of  the  extant  literature. 
We  are  always  at  a  disadvantage  in  discussing  the  source  of  a  supposedly 
Homeric  suggestion.  In  this  case,  for  example,  Euripides  may  be  follow- 
ing some  current  Doloneia  differing  from  Iliad  10,  and  perhaps  even  older 
than  the  version  there  given. 

"8See  above,  6,  n.  22. 


98         The  Dream  in  Homer  and  Greek  Tragedy 

its  authenticity  has  been  assailed.  By  others,  who  have 
accepted  the  Rhesus  as  genuine,  it  has  been  assigned  to  various 
dates.  Those  critics  who  have  discussed  the  play  recently 
admit  it,  as  a  rule,  to  the  Euripidean  canon  and  consider  it 
among  the  earliest  of  the  plays  of  Euripides. ^^^^  With  this 
decision  the  writer  is  inclined  to  agree.  The  older  view  tended 
to  place  the  play  late.  The  form  of  dream  employed  indicates 
either  an  early  date  for  the  Rhesus  or  else  a  conscious  return  to 
an  earlier  manner.  For  we  find  in  the  description  of  the  dream 
many  details  which  are  reminiscent  of  the  epic  treatment.  The 
position  of  the  dream  is  given  as  in  the  earlier  Homeric  dreams 
(luaptaTaTat,  780).  It  appears  to  a  male,  as  the  dreams  in  the 
IliadF^  appear  to  males,  whereas  the  conventional  recipient  of 
the  dream  in  tragedy  is  a  woman.^^^  It  contains  a  simple 
allegory,  as  simple  as  the  allegory  of  the  geese  and  the  eagle 
of  Penelope's  dream — the  wolves  which  leap  upon  the  backs  of 
the  mares  are  Odysseus  and  Diomedes  of  the  Homeric  story .^^^ 
The  charioteer's  efforts  to  save  the  horses  wake  him  as  do 
Achilles'  attempts  to  throw  his  arms  about  the  phantom  of 
Patroclus.^^2  Finally,  in  its  general  lack  of  complexity  the 
description  in  the  Rhesus  approximates  the  epic  norm. 

In  relation  to  any  furthering  of  the  plot,  on  the  other  hand,  its 
kinship  with  the  Homeric  type  of  dream  is  very  distant.^^ 
The  dream  is  added  to  the  tale  rather  as  an  embellishment  than 

378aw,  N.  Bates,  Transactions  of  the  American  Philological  Assoc,  47,  5, 
footnotes  1-3,  gives  the  bibliographical  clues  to  the  older  and  the  more 
recent  views.      ^ 

«795,  150;   10,  496;   23,  62.  ^sosupra,  65,  n.  253. 

^^^Iliad,  10,  498-514.  It  will  be  recalled  that  Athene  warned  the  heroes 
to  leave  before  seciiring  the  chariot. 

^^Uliad,  23,  99-102. 

383Care  must  be  taken  here  to  note  that  I  am  comparing  the  Homeric 
dream  such  as  is  related  in  full  with  the  dream  in  the  Rhesus  similarly 
related  in  full.  It  is  not  my  intent  to  compare  the  dream  of  the  charioteer 
with  the  epic  poet's  mention,  in  passing,  in  one  line,  of  the  dream  of  Rhesus, 
Iliad,  10.  496. 


Euripides  99 

as  an  integral  and  necessary  part  of  the  story.  For  it  is  narrated 
well  along  toward  the  end  of  the  play  (at  line  780;  the  play 
contains  996  lines)  and  even  there  is  unimportant.  It  plays  no 
rdle  in  influencing  the  action:  dream  and  fulfilment  are  told 
within  twenty  lines  (780-797).  In  the  large  it  gives  nothing  to 
the  play  in  the  way  of  atmosphere,  as  do  the  dreams  in  the 
Choephori,  the  Persae,  the  Electra  of  Sophocles,  and  the  Tauric 
Iphigenia.  The  suspense  which  the  dramatic  recital  of  the 
dream  causes  is  too  momentary  to  affect  the  play  as  a  whole. 
The  full  function  and  purpose  of  this  dream  seem  to  be  the 
minute  elaboration  and  adornment  of  a  detail. 

All  this  is  not  without  explanation.  Rationalistic  Euripides  ^ 
scarcely  believed  in  the  divine  origin  of  dreams.^**  He  accepted  <^ 
the  dream  as  a  valuable  artistic  device.  He  was  not  averse,  as  a 
craftsman,  to  giving  it  a  position  of  the  utmost  importance  in 
advancing  the  plot.  The  Tauric  Iphigenia  illustrates  this  state- 
ment. But  the  dream  had  lost  for  him  all  that  religious  and 
artistic  awe  and  sanctity  which  it  had  held  for  Aeschylus.  It 
was  to  him  an  instrument  to  be  used  for  any  purpose  which 
would  serve  artistic  ends  as  he  conceived  them.  Any  idea  of 
'remembering  the  dream  to  keep  it  holy'  was  as  foreign  to  his 
dramatic  practice  as  to  his  philosophy.  Euripides  wanted  an 
episode  to  give  vividness  and  distinction  to  the  narration  of 
the  messenger  (for  that  is  what  the  charioteer  really  is).  This 
little  prettiness  could  have  been  secured  by  other  devices,  of 
course,  but  the  epic  story  suggested  a  dream.  Our  author, 
therefore,  pitched  upon  a  fairly  simple  epic  type,  the  artlessly 

38<Hey,  22,  who  cites  Hec.  69-70,  Iph.  Taur.  1262-1266,  and  Aristophanes. 
Frogs,  1331  (which  levels  ridicule,  evidently  at  the  head  of  Euripides, 
for  over-doing  the  dream  of  horror),  says:  "Auch  Euripides  also  ist  wie 
Sokrates  trotz  seiner  aufklartiiden  Tendenz  als  traumglaubig  zu  betrachten 
(wenigstens  in  seinen  Dramen),  wenn  wir  auch  bei  ihm  das  spielerische 
Moment,  das  zum  Teil  eben  in  der  Ubertreibung  liegt,  nicht  verkennen 
woUen".  The  truth  lies  in  his  protasis  rather  than  in  his  apodosis;  see 
Staehlin,  217-218;  P.  Decharme,  Euripide  et  V esprit  de  son  tUatre,  96  ff. 
(Paris,  1893). 


100        The  Dream  in  Homer  and  Greek  Tragedy 

allegorical,  and  used  it  in  quite  Alexandrian  fashion  for  local 
adornment. 

That  the  dream  is  effective  in  this  small  way  no  one  can  deny. 
But,  however  forcible  it  is  in  the  context,  this  use  of  the  dream 
to  produce  a  momentary  effect  is  a  debasing  of  it  frojn  the  high 
office  which  it  filled  in  Euripides'  fellow-poets.  .  The  over- 
elaboration  of  details  which  came  so  much  into  vogue  among 
Hellenistic  writers  had  caught  the  dream  too  in  its  net.  Euripi- 
des, so  eminently  the  first  of  the  Alexandrians  in  other  respects, 
was  here  also  the  precursor  of  those  who  used  the  dream  for 
small  ends  or  unimportant  prettinesses.  / 

Minor  References 

The  smaller  references  in  Euripides  to  the  dream  are  of 
natural  frequency.  I  shall  follow  roughly  the  chronological 
order  of  the  plays  in  noticing  them. 

Silenus,  in  the  Cyclops,  after  boasting  of  his  prowess  in 
Bacchus*  cause,  in  fear  of  disbelief,  says  (8) :  ^ip'  lfB(o,  tout'  (Btbv 
ovap  Xeyo) ;  Here  dream  experiences  are  looked  upon  as  merely 
fanciful,  existing  only  in  the  imagination. 

In  the  Alcestis,  Admetus,  in  his  touching  leave-taking  from 
his  wife,  hopes  that  in  dreams  she  may  appear  to  him  and  cheer 
him  (354-355):  iy  B'  6vetpaat  cjjotTwad  [i  e()^gaiyoiq  av.  The  same 
idea  occurs  in  the  Hercules  Furens.  Megara  calls  upon  her 
husband  to  appear  to  her  if  only  as  a  shade  (494).  She  adds 
(495):  cxltq  yap  iXGwv  xav  ovap  yevoto  au.  A  fragment  from 
the  Alope  (Nauck  108)  exhibits  a  like  idea.^^^  In  the  T auric 
Iphigenia  the  chorus  of  captive  Greek  women  pray  that  they 
may  see  their  native  land  and  homes  again  if  only  in  dreams 
(452-455).  And  Orestes  in  the  same  tone  wishes  that  he  had 
never  known  Troy,  not  even  in  a  dream  (518) . 

In  the  Hercules  Furens,  the  Theban  ancients  declare  them- 
selves, in  view  of  their  age,  to  be  'mere  words,  the  gloomy- 
visaged  fancy  of  midnight  dreams'  (111-112):  sxea  [xovov  xai 
B6xY)[jLa  vuxTep(i)x6v  Ivvu^wv  dvscpwv.   This  figure  (i.  e.  the  likening 

'^VXiJcraj  5^  v7]Si>v  o^5'  6vap  kolt''  €V(pp6vr]v  tplXois  edei^ev  aitrbv. 


Euripides  101 

of  the  feebleness  and  helplessness  of  old  age  to  a  dream)  is  used  by 
the  chorus  to  excuse  its  inability,  though  loyal,  to  aid  Megara 
and  her  children.  It  falls  far  short,  however,  of  the  beauty 
and  startling  unexpectedness  of  the  phrase  employed  by  the 
aged  chorus  of  the  Agamemnon  (82)  for  a  like  purpose,  ovap 
f)^sp6<l)avTov.^^®  In  two  other  places  the  dream  is  a  synonym 
for  the  feebleness  of  age.  Antigone,  in  the  Phoenissae,  leads 
forth  her  aged  father,  who  calls  himself  a  grey,  unsubstantial 
wraith,  *a  winged  dream'  (1545).  This  description  the  daughter 
recurs  to  when  she  calls  him  to  her,  'like  a  dream  in  respect  to 
strength'  (1720-1722) :  iq.^z  T(?8e  ^aOf  [loi,  T(?c8eTqt8sx65aTieeC(;,  wot' 
ovstpov  (ffX'JV.  In  the  Aeolus  (fr.  25,  Nauck)'®^  the  old  men  say: 
6ve(p(i)v  §'  Ipxo^ev  (jn[jLY){xaTa.  When  Hercules,  who  was  reported 
dead,  suddenly  appears,  Megara  is  at  first  amazed,  but,  when 
immediately  afterward  she  is  convinced  that  Hercules  is  really 
come,  she  has  recourse  to  the  figure  of  the  dream  to  express  her 
conviction  (516-519): 

8B'  icxb  8v  YYJq  vlp6ev  slaYjxouopiev, 

e!  [JLT)  y'  ovetpov  iy  (])aet  ti  Xeuaaofxsv. 

xi  <l)Tf)|J.(;  xol*  ovetpa  xif)pa(voua'  ipw; 

o6x  saG'  U'  aXXoq  avxl  aoO  -KOciUq,  ylpov.'^ 

Tjmdarus  in  the  Orestes  (615  ff.)  turns  his  anger  against 
Electra  also,  saying  that  she  has  incited  Orestes  by  telling  him 
the  dreams  sent  up  from  beneath  the  earth  by  Agamemnon. 
This  is  a  reference  to  the  dream  of  Clytaemestra  which  had  by 
this  time  become  famous  because  it  had  been  recounted  by 
Aeschylus  in  his  Choephori  and,  in  modified  form,  by  Sophocles 
in  his  Electra.     Both  these  plays  were  produced  long  before  the 

"«Supra,  78. 

'"Nauck.  fr.  25,  3  (Leipzig,  1891). 

388Paley's  assignment  of  517  to  Amphritryon  and  his  explanation  of  this 
passage  are  entirely  indefensible.  Heracles  is  not  looked  upon  by  Megara 
as  appearing  in  a  dream.  After  her  first  ejaculation  of  amazement,  514, 
she  is  aware  that  he  has  really  returned  in  the  flesh  unless  the  impossible 
is  true,  as  517-518  mean  'How  could  I  dream  in  broad  daylight,  especially 
anxious  as  I  am?' 


102        The  Dream  in  Homer  and  Greek  Tragedy 

Orestes. ^^^  Euripides  then  in  the  Orestes  makes  a  single  reference 
in  passing,  as  it  were,  to  a  well-known  tale.^^° 

In  the  Helena,  Theoclymenus  asks  Helen  whether  she  is 
groaning  because  of  dreams  she  has  seen  by  night  (1190-1191) : 
xoTspov  evvuxotc;  xsTTStapLevT]  jT^vett;  6v£fpotq.     .     .     ; 

One  more  passage  completes  the  list.  In  the  Meleager  (fr. 
537,  Nauck)  the  idea  of  Alcestis  692  if.,  that  life  though  short  is 
sweet  and  death  long  and  dreary,  is  repeated  in  the  declaration 
that  it  is  unpleasant  for  mortals  even  to  dream  of  the  darkness 
of  Hades. 

389The  Choephori  was  produced  458  B.  C,  the  Sophoclean  Electra  some 
time  between  429  and  412,  and  the  Orestes,  408  (see  Christ,  1,  297,  331, 
and  354  respectively). 

3^°Staehlin,  131,  thinks  that  the  dream  referred  to  here  must  be  different* 
asserting  that  not  Clytaemestra,  but  Electra  dreams.  This  inference  is 
not  necessary.  Electra  arouses  her  brother  by  interpreting  to  him  her 
mother's  evil  dream. 


LIST  OF  ABBREVIATIONS^ 

Ameis-Hentze   =  Ameis-Hentze.    Homers    Ilias^      (Leipzig,     1894- 

1906). 

Anhang  zu  Homers  Ilia^*    (Leipzig, 

1882-1900). 
Homers     Odyssee^^^     (Leipzig    und 

Berlin,  1895-1901). 
Anhang  zu  Homers  Odyssee^iLdp- 
zig,  1889-1900). 

Aust  =  E.  Aust.     Die  Religion  der  Romer  (Munster  i.  W.,  1899). 

Baumeister  =  A.    Baumeister.    Denkmdler  des    klassischen  Altertums 
(Munchen  und  Leipzig,  1885-1888). 

Bekker  =  I.  Bekker.     Carmina  Homerica  (Bonn,  1858). 

Bergk  =  T.  Bergk.    Poetae  Lyrici  Graeci'^  (Leipzig,  1878-1882). 

Bemardakis  =  EipnrlSov  Spd/nara   i^   ip/irivelas   ^tfti-qxplov  N.  BepwpSdKi/ 
(Athens,  1894). 

Boisacq  =  E.  Boisacq.    Dictionnaire  Stymologique  de  la  langue  grecque 
(Heidelberg  and  Paris,  1916). 

Boissier  =  G.  Boissier.    La  religion  romaine  d'  Auguste  aux  Antonins 
(Paris,  1874). 

Bouch6-Leclercq=A.  Bouch^-Leclercq.    Histoire  de  la  divination  dans 
Vantiquite  (Paris,  1879). 

Buchholz  =  E.  Buchholz  .    Die  Homerischen  ReaUen  (Leipzig,  1881). 

Buchsenschutz  =  B.   Buchsenschutz.     Traum  und   Traumdeutung  im 
Alterthume  (Berlin,  1868). 

Campbell  =  L.  Campbell.    Religion  in  Greek  Literature  (London  and 
New  York,  1898). 

Cauer,  Bias  =  P.  Cauer.    Homeri  lUas  (Leipzig,  1890-1891). 

Christ  =  W.  Christ.     Geschichte  der  Griechischen  Literatur^-*  (Munchen, 
1911-1913). 

Christ,  Bias  =  W.  Christ.    Homeri  Iliadis  Carmina  (Leipzig,  1884). 

Couat  =  A.  Couat.    La  poisie  alexandrine  (Paris,  1882). 

Croi^t  =  A.  and  M.  Croiset.     An  Abridged  History  of  Greek  Literature 
(English  translation  by  G.  Heffelbower,  New  York,  1904). 

Cumont  =  F.  Cumont.  Oriental  Religions  in  Roman  Paganism  (English 
translation,  Chicago,  1911). 

De  Marchi  =  A.  De  Marchi.    //  culto  privato  di  Roma  antica  (Milan, 
1896). 


iWhere  one  abbreviation  covers  two  or  more  works  (e.  g.  Ameis-Hentze),  the  partjctxlar 
work  to  which  reference  is  made  in  any  citation  will  be  clear  from  the  context.  Except 
where  otherwise  indicated,  I  have  used  for  Homer  and  Euripides  the  Oxford  texts,  tor 
Aeschylus  the  Teubner  text  of  Weil,  and  for  Sophocles  the  text  of  Campbell. 

103 


104        The  Dream  in  Homer  and  Greek  Tragedy 

Deubner  =  L.  Deubner.  De  Incubatione  Capita  Quattuor  (Leipzig,  1900). 

Dieterich  =  A.  Dieterich.     Kleine  Schriften  (Leipzig,  1911). 

Dieterich,   Nekyia  =  A.   Dieterich.      Nekyia.    Beitrdge   zur  Erkldrung 
der  neuentdeckten  Petrusapokalypse^   (Leipzig,   1913). 

Dill  =  S.  Dill.     Roman  Society  from  Nero  to  Marcus  Aurelius  (London, 
1905). 

Duntzer  =  H.  Diintzer.     Homers  Ilias  (Paderbom,  1866). 

Dyer  =  L.  Dyer.     Studies  of  the  Gods  in  Greece  (London,  1891). 

Ellis  =  R.  Ellis.     A  Commentary  on  Catullus'^  (Oxford,  1889). 

Eustathius  =  Eustathius.     Commentarii  ad  Homeri  Iliadem  (ed.  J.  G. 

Stallbaum,  Leipzig,  1827-1829). 
Commentarii  ad  Homeri  Odysseam  (ed.  J.  G. 
Stallbaum,  Leipzig,  1825-1826). 

de  Felice  =  P.  de  Felice.    V autre  monde  (Paris,  1906). 

Fick  =  A.  Fick.     Die  Homerische  Ilias  (Gottingen,  1886). 

Frazer,  Belief  in  Immortality  =  J.  G.  Frazer.   The  Belief  in  Immortality 
(London,  1913). 

Frazer,  Golden  Bough  =  J.  G.  Frazer.     The  Golden  Boug¥  (London, 
1911-1915). 

Frazer,  Pausanias  =  J.  G.  Frazer.     Pausanias'  Description  of  Greece^ 
(London,  1913). 

Freud  =  S.  Freud.     Die  Traumdeutung'^  (Leipzig  und  Wien,  1914). 

Gilbert  =  O.  Gilbert.     Griechische  Gotterlehre  (Leipzig,  1898). 

Gomperz,    Greek    Thinkers  =  T.   Gomperz.     Greek    Thinkers    (English 
translation  by  L.  Magnus  and  G.  G.  Berry,  New  York,  1901-1911). 

Gomperz,   Essays  =  T.  Gomperz.    Essays  und  Erinnerungen   (Stutt- 
gart, 1905). 

Granger  =  F.  S.  Granger.     The  Worship  of  the  Romans  (London,  1895). 

Hamilton  =  Mary  Hamilton.     Incubation  (London,  1906). 

Hardie  =  W.  R.  Hardie.     Lectures  on  Classical  Subjects  (London,  1903). 

-  Hey  =  F.  O.  Hey.  Der  Traumglaube  der  Antike  (Programm  des  kgl. 
Realgymnasiums  Miinchen,  1907-1908  [Munchen,  1908]). 

-  Hey,  Religion  =  F.  O.  Hey.  Die  Wurzeln  der  Griechischen  Religion,  in 
besonderem  Zusammenhang  mit  dem  Traumglauben  (Programm  des  kgl. 
Gymnasiums  in  Neuburg,  1909-1910  [Neuburg  a.  D.,  1910]). 

Jebb  =  R.  C.  Jebb.     The  Electra  of  Sophocles  (Cambridge,  1904). 

Kaibel  =  G.  Kaibel.     Sophokles  Elektra  (Leipzig,  1896). 

Kammer  =  E.  Kammer.     Die  Einheit  der  Odyssee  (Leipzig,  1873). 

Kiessling-Heinze  =  A.    Kiessling — R.    Heinze.     Q.    Horatius    Flaccus. 

tiren*   (Berlin,   1910). 

Lang  =  A.  Lang.    Homer  and  his  Age  (London,  1906). 

La  Roche  =  J.  La  Roche.     Homeri  Ilias  (Leipzig,  1873). 

Leaf  =  W.  Leaf.     The  Iliad^  (London,  1900-1902). 


List  of  Abbreviations  105 

Maury,  Magie  =  L.  F.  A.  Maury.    La  magie  et  Vastrologie  dans  VanU- 
quite  et  au  moyen  dge  (Paris,  1860). 

Messer  =  W.  S.  Messer.    Ad.  Cic.  Tusc.  Disp.  3, 19,  45  (in  Mnemosyne, 
N.  S.  45,  78-92). 

Migne,    P.  G.  =  J.    P.  Migne.    Patrologiae  Cursus  Completus.  Series 
Graeca  (Paris,  1854-1866). 

Migne,  P.  L.  =  J.  P.  Migne.     Patrologiae  Cursus  Completus.    Series 
Latina  (Paris,  1844-1880). 

Nagelsbach,    Ilias  —  K.    F.    Nagelsbach.    Anmerkungen    zur    Ilias* 
(Niimberg,  1864). 

Nagelsbach,  Horn.  Theol.  —  K.  F.  Nagelsbach.    Homerische  Theologies 
(Niimberg,  1861). 

Nagelsbach,  Nachhom.  Theol.  =  K.  F.  Nagelsbach.     Die  Nachhomerische 
Theologie  des  Griechischen  Volksglauben  bis  auf  Alexander  (Niimberg,  1857). 

Nestle  =  W.    Nestle.     Die    Weltanschauung  '  des   Aischylos    (in    Neue 
Jahrbiicher  fur  d.  kl.  Altertums,  19). 

Norden  =  E.  Norden.     Aeneis,  Book  vi^  (Leipzig,  1916). 

Patin  =  M.   Patin.     Etudes  sur  les  tragiques  grecs.    EschyW   (Paris, 
1890). 

Preller-Robert  =  L.  Preller — C.  Robert.    Griechische  Mythologie*  (Ber- 
lin, 1894). 

Prellwitz  =  W.  Prellwitz.    Etymologisches  Worterbuch  der  Griechischen 
Sprache  (Gottingen,  1905). 

Richter  =  P.  Richter.     Zur  Dramaturgie  des  Aschylus  (Leipzig,  1892). 

Robert  =  C.  Robert.     Thanatos.     (Berlin,  1879). 

Rohde  =  E.  Rohde.    Psyche^  (Tiibigen,  1907). 

Roscher  =  W.  H.  Roscher.    Hermes  der  Windgott  (Leipzig,  1878). 

Seymour  =  T.  D.  Seymour.    Life  in  the  Homeric  Age  (New  York,  1907). 

Spencer  =  H.  Spencer.     The  Principles  of  Sociology^  (New  York  1899- 
1900). 

Staehlin  =  R.  Staehlin.    Das  Motiv  der  Mantik  im  Antiken  Drama 
(Giessen,  1912). 

Susemihl  =  F.  Susemihl.    Geschichte  der  Griechischen  Litteratur  in  der 
Alexandrinerzeit  (Leipzig,  1892). 

Tylor  =  E.  B.  Tylor.     Primitive  Culture^  (London,  1903). 

Vahlen  «=  J.  Vahlen.    Ennianae  Poesis  Reliquiae^  (Leipzig,  1903). 

Weil  =  H.  Weil.    Etude  sur  le  drame  antique  (Paris,  1897). 

Weil,  Sept  Trag.  =  H.  Weil.    Sept  tragSdies  d'EuripideS  (Paris,  1905). 

Zuretti  =  C.  O.  Zuretti.    Omero.  VTliade  (Torino,  1896-1905). 


VITA 

William  Stuart  Messer,  the  writer  of  this  dissertation,  was 
born  in  Washington,  District  of  Columbia,  August  19,  1882. 
He  was  graduated  from  Columbia  University  with  the  degree  of 
Bachelor  of  Arts  in  1905.  From  the  same  institution  he  received 
the  degree  of  Master  of  Arts  in  the  year  1909.  With  the  excep- 
tion of  a  short  residence  at  Yale  University,  his  graduate  work 
has  been  done  entirely  at  his  Alma  Mater,  where  in  1909-1910 
he  was  University  Fellow  in  Classical  Philology  and  in  1910- 
1911  Gottsberger  Fellow  in  Classical  Philology.  In  1905-1909 
he  taught  Latin  and  Greek  in  Barnard  School,  New  York  City. 
Since  1911  he  has  been  Instructor  in  Classical  Philology  in 
Columbia  University. 

He  has  taken  courses  at  Columbia  University  with  Professors 
James  C.  Egbert,  Roscoe  Guernsey,  Charles  Knapp,  Gonzalez 
Lodge,  Nelson  G.  McCrea,  George  N.  Olcott,  Harry  Thurston 
Peck,  Edward  D.  Perry,  James  R.  Wheeler,  Clarence  H. 
Young,  and  also  with  two  distinguished  visitors  who  conducted 
seminars  or  courses  during  his  residence.  Professors  James  S. 
Reid  and  Christian  Huelsen.  To  all  of  these  preceptors,  and 
especially  to  those  whom  he  met  and  under  whose  influence  he 
fell  during  his  undergraduate  days,  he  owes  no  small  measure  of 
gratitude  for  their  unfailing  kindness  and  inspiration.  To 
Professor  Knapp,  who  has  subjected  this  dissertation  to  his 
usual  careful  and  judicious  criticism,  he  can  only  tender  his 
heartiest  thanks,  thereby  adding  himself  to  the  ever  increasing 
number  of  those  who  have  given  similar  testimony  in  so  many 
recent  American  text-books  and  dissertations  in  the  field  of 
Classical  Philology. 


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